Stat of the Week Winner: May 11-17 2013

Congratulations to Simon Connell for his nomination of this stat of the week from the Otago Daily Times:

“In a three-month trial in Manukau [of an automatic number plate recognition unit], police recovered 15 stolen vehicles, took 180 disqualified, forbidden or suspended drivers off the road, and recovered stolen property from various offenders, [Southern District acting road policing manager Senior Sergeant Steve Larking] said.

”So the benefits are clear.””

Simon makes an excellent point about evidence:

“I’m not sure if this is strictly a statistic or not, but this story (which reads like a copy/paste from a press release) seems to accept without question the benefits of the automatic number plate recognition unit.
We can’t actually make any assessment of the benefits of the unit without some information about how many stolen cards would have been recovered etc. without the unit installed. It does seem like the unit is useful, but it’s hard to judge whether or not it’s worth the $40-$50k price tag without further information.”