Consider a town with a population that is 15 percent black and the remainder is
ID: 1206289 • Letter: C
Question
Consider a town with a population that is 15 percent black and the remainder is white. Because blacks are more likely to work the night shifts, 25 percent of all cars driven in that town at night are driven by blacks. One out of every 10 people driving at night is drunk, regardless of skin color. Persons who are not drunk never swerve their car, but 20 percent of all drunk drivers, regardless of color, swerve their cars. On a typical night, 6,000 cars are observed by the police.
a) What percent of blacks driving at night are driving drunk? What percent of whites driving at night are driving drunk?
b) Of the 6,000 cars observed, how many are driven by blacks? How many of these cars are driven by a drunk? Of the 6,000 cars observed at night, how many are driven by whites? How many of these cars are driven by a drunk? What percent of nighttime drunk drivers are black?
c) The police chief believes the drunk-driving problem is mainly due to black drunk drivers. He orders his policemen to pull over all swerving cars and one in every two non-swerving cars that is driven by a black person. The driver of a non-swerving car is then given a breathalyzer test that is 100 percent accurate in diagnosing drunk driving. Under this enforcement scheme, what percent of people arrested for drunk driving will be black?
d) What is the main conclusion you derive after answering this question?
Explanation / Answer
(a) The percent of drivers who are drunk is identical across races – 5 percent of all drivers regardlessof race are drunk.
(b) Of the 6,000 cars driven at night, 25 percent (or 1,500) are driven by blacks. As one out of every ten people are drunk, there are 150 black drunk drivers. Similarly, 4,500 of the cars are drivenby whites, and there are 450 drunk white drivers. Thus 25 percent (150 out of 600) of the drunkdrivers are black, just like 25 percent of all drivers are black
(c) One-fifth of white drunk drivers will be arrested as they were swerving. This totals 50 drivers.Likewise one-fifth of black drunk drivers will be arrested as they were seen swerving. This totals 30 drivers.Of the remaining 5,970 drivers, 120 black are being drunk. As one in every two blacks ispulled over on suspicion, 60 additional blacks will be arrested for drunk driving as they will failthe breathalyzer test.