Over inflated costings..

[boatman61]

Every so often folk start on about the thousands of $'s of taxpayers money spent on rescue's at sea.
I have always felt that this is an invented number taken to its most extreme for dramatic effect on the general public..
Saw this report on Sky today that time spent sitting in traffic jams is costing each UK worker £1000+/year..
Now I cannot understand where they get this figure from..
The AA and RAC have said on average we spend 31 hours a year sitting in traffic jams.. so working on the premise I work a five day week that's 268 days of traffic jams or if you break down the 31hrs that's an average of 12 minutes a day going to work and back..
Now if I am a temp working at the minimum wage of £7.50 x 31 that's £232.50/year.. throw in the cost of 31hrs of petrol for a say 30mpg car ticking over.. lets say 3Litres/hr.. that's £114.39.
So in actual fact that's a total of £356/year in fuel and time lost..
A Bludi long way from £1000 or more a year.

[ccannan]

My guess is that many lower wage workers use public transport. Also guessing that the number is an average, meaning traffic costs some workers more and others less. 30mpg in stop & go traffic might be optimistic too (closer to 15mpg in the USA).

[sailorboy1]

it cost me $34.12 of time to log in and read this

what's that in boat beer :-)

But back to the original post, in economics there's a concept of fixed costs and variable costs. Most of the blown over costs "things" are talking about total costs, but really for the most only the variable could be saved by not doing the "things" and those are low compared to the total.

[a64pilot]

I’m going out on a limb and will say that I bet their calculation is based on the total time to commute, not just the time sitting in a traffic jam.
Cause that is a real easy number, if your correct in the 31 hour part, then multiply 31 by the cost per hour to operate a vehicle and by the average wage rate, and you have your answer.

I had a neighbor when I lived in Germany, he said Germans had a saying, statistics are like a lady of the evening, if your paying, you get what you want.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by ccannan

My guess is that many lower wage workers use public transport. Also guessing that the number is an average, meaning traffic costs some workers more and others less. 30mpg in stop & go traffic might be optimistic too (closer to 15mpg in the USA).

Yeah.. but you drive gas guzzlers and have subsidised fuel..
In London most folks don't commute into the City by car as there's a £11.50/day toll for entering.. however outside that zone many drive.. unless work is convenient to a Tube or bus stop with just one or two changes.
I used to drive from Crystal Palace to Chertsey 6 days a week.. public transport would have turned a 40+min drive into a 2-3hr ordeal with lots of changes.. you gotta know the rat runs..

[QUOTE=a64pilot;2571212]I’m going out on a limb and will say that I bet their calculation is based on the total time to commute, not just the time sitting in a traffic jam.
Cause that is a real easy number, if your correct in the 31 hour part, then multiply 31 by the cost per hour to operate a vehicle and by the average wage rate, and you have your answer.

I thought I had in my post.. oh.!!! and the average wage rate is earned by 25% of the population.

[a64pilot]

You did, I didn’t get into the detail of the post apparently.
However especially any News agency, you can tell their motivations by how bad they obviously slant the stats to prove what they are trying to get the public to believe.
There really is a lot of “fake news”, by both sides, always has been, just it does seem worse now, cause I believe they can now get away with it, the public used to would have called them on it, but now just accept what they read.
It must be true, it came from xx news agency.

[zeehag]

stats are yes whores for the buying. skew em whichever way the wallet runs.
polls are useless..look at usa POLITICS for example. i need say no more, correct?

[hugosalt]

Have me thinking boaty.
Are you looking to add up and quantify the time spent in the doldrums?

[JPA Cate]

And yet, numbers can bring a great deal of clarity to one's thought. For example, running your water calculations. Boatie said he managed for a 47 day passage, on less than 140 liters of water.

Figuring 2 l per day, he would have consumed 94 l for coffee and drinking water, leaving him with about 1 l per day for washing up using fresh water. Of course, one can use salt water for washing up the dishes, and for personal hygiene, and also, not every day does one need to drink the whole 2 liters.

[Cheechako]

Yep. One wonders the basis for their accounting. For instance, a crew of National Guard may make a run to Europe in their C141 just because they need training hours in the book. If you account the cost of that it must be huge.
In many cases the people are being paid either way for sitting at work or actually doing something. Do they subtract the built in cost for these claims? Or do they just say a helicopter and crew cost x amount, negating that much of the cost is incurred whether they go out or not?
My ex boss was a genius at this. Let's say we have a $600k value machine sitting idle in the shop. We'd do a bid and accounting would say "that machine is $350 an hour". So the bid was very high. My boss might say "so if the machine sits gaining no income, it's better than selling machine time at $200 an hour on a machine that depreciates daily and is underutilized"? It's more complex than that example , but you get the idea....