Economists believe that, other things equal, people who earn more money have a higher opportunity cost of time. A reasonable inference, therefore, would be that higher income people would want to drive faster. (This is incomplete; higher income people could well have a higher demand for safety, offsetting the higher price of their time. But higher income could also correlate with better health and alertness, making it easier to drive faster. And there are other complications, but work with me here.) Much to the surprise of a Pemco Insurance spokesman, that seems to be the case. (Link via Fark.)

Comments

[andrew]

The survey in the article has a sample size of only 600. And no information on confidence intervals or sampling methods is provided (or even linked to). Plus the survey relies on highly suspect self-reported speeding rates by drivers. Totally not credible.

Besides, toward the end of the article it's reported that the survey itself conflicts with actual Washington State police data on speeding:

"Last year, the Washington State Patrol stopped a half a million speeders. Most were between 19 and 22 years old, with no college degree and no fat paycheck."

The only thing that survey demonstrates is the link between television media and bogus statistics.

[jc]

Andrew,

I had read the article and come to opposite conclusion regarding the relevance of the quote from the Washington state police. The Pemco survey is addressing the question, what is the probability that you are a speeder given income.
The proportion of speeders caught who are of a given income depends both on those probabilities and the proportion of miles driven, by income levels, out of all miles driven.
The author of the article is the one showing ignorance of statistics.