Lost in transit

Statistical anomalies

I had my car's windshield replaced recently. It cost just under four hundred Euro, and that was a bargain compared to the other places I called.

Luckily my daughter can drive. She followed me to the glass guy one morning and we drove on into town in her car. The next day she gave me a ride to the place to pick it up again.

It was, I think, the fifth time I've had a windshield replaced since I've been living in Austria. I've been here about seventeen years this time. I had a driver's license for about ten of the years I lived in the United States, I suppose, and never had a broken windshield, and neither did anyone I knew there.

The week I had mine replaced, my wife's developed a crack and will have to be replaced soon too. And her car is bigger, so it will cost more. Luckily, it might be insured. Not sure.

This is how the cracks happen, I guess: a piece of gravel hits you on the freeway and you get a little ding in the glass. About one in ten of these grow with time, until you have a crack all the way across and have to replace.

I think this happens because they put gravel on the road here when it snows. Not usually on the freeways, but it gets carried on in tires etc and then tossed into the air when the cars accelerate to freeway speeds, maybe.

In comparison, it rarely snowed in the Pacific Northwest where I grew up, and I don't remember that they spread gravel in the quantities they do here.

Have you been surprised by any unusual clusters of events like this in your adopted country?

Posted by Mig at January 25, 2008 03:49 PM