Unqualified Statistics

I hate statements that are unqualified, and therefore meaningless, with regard to statistics.

On Sunrise this morning, in the local news, they trotted out the chestnut:

“12% of people charged with drink-driving in the last two years were P-platers.”

This is totally meaningless without an indication of what percentage of the driving population are P-platers. What if it is higher than 12%? Then P-platers are actually more responsible than the rest of us…

Bah.