OxBlog

# Posted 1:03 AM by Ariel David Adesnik

OXBLOG SLANDERS SOUTH & MIDWEST: When you blog, everything you write gets put under the microscope. Sometimes I wish it weren't so. But at the end of the day, it is precisely this sort of challenge that makes this a rewarding experience.

For example, I randomly decided to put up a post on this list of America's 10 most dangerous intersections. It turns out to be a pretty flawed list. In my original post, I wrote that "It's hard to believe that none of [the 10 interesections] are in Boston or New York." Yet as MG points out, State Farm's "national" list only includes information on those states where it sells insurance. Had I paid closer I attention, I would've noticed that neither New York nor Massachusetts is one of those states.

Next up, DB points out that State Farm's "danger index" only takes into account the number of accidents at an intersection, not the amount of traffic that goes through it. Furthermore, DB went looking for aerial photos of the intersections on the list and discovered that that most of them are really, really big. In other words, the frequency of accidents at those intersections may not be exceptionally high, but sheer size catapults them to the top of the list. (For a photo of the number one intersection, click here.)

All in all, I'd say that this is a pretty good demonstration of how the blogosphere forces all of us to think more seriously about everything we say. Without hundreds of writers and thousands of readers, the system wouldn't work. The end result? My apologies to the South & Midwest for naively accepting groundless assertions that their drivers are worse than our own up here in the North. I guess OxBlog won't be getting the votes of anyone with a Confederate flag on the back of their truck...

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