Lights at Tee StreetApril 8, 2006Dear Sir,Yet another accident at the South Shore end of Tee Street on April 6. Both ends of this road are notorious accident spots, which the statistics must show. Why on earth can traffic lights not be installed at both ends? This would serve to slow traffic on both Middle Road and South Shore and give vehicles waiting to join those roads more than a fighting chance.

NORTHERN SOUL

Smith’s Parish<$>A sample is a sampleApril 8, 2006Dear Sir,I wish to comment on some points raised by S. Clemens in his or her letter published on April 3, 2006. They stated, and I quote: “A one percent sample in Bermuda ain’t the same as a one percent sample in say, New York!”

This is a common misconception that a sample is drawn based on the percentage of a population. A sample is drawn based on mainly two principles — randomness and equal probability.

Randomness means that all eligible members of a population (such as a voting population) has a known chance of being included in the sample. An equal probability sample speaks to the fact that each member of a population has an equal<$> chance of being included in the sample. So long as these two principles are followed, bias in surveys are minimised and this is done by the use of universally accepted sampling techniques. These techniques were perfected by the late Dr. Leslie Kish of the University of Michigan, largely considered to be the godfather of modern day sampling methods.

In short, a properly selected sample in Bermuda of 400 persons has a margin of error of approximately 4.5 percent (which in the case of the voting public can adequately speak for 40,000 voters). The margin of error acknowledges the fact that since the entire population was not sampled, the findings of the study will vary to some extent. The margin of error tells us by how much. A sample of 1,000 persons in the United States, which is standard, has a margin of error of three percent. A regional sample for New York City of 1,000 people will speak for several million people. It should be also noted that a national sample of 1,000 people in the United States actually speaks for about 150 million voters and this is all possible because of the statistical principles which I mentioned earlier.

Of course a larger sample can yield better results, but due to the inverse relationship of the sample size to the margin of error, in order to reduce the margin of error by half, you would have to double the sample size, a costly operation.

The other two points raised by S. Clemens are validity and reliability. If a survey is valid it should be measuring what it is designed to measure. If it is reliable, it should be able to be repeated under similar circumstances and achieve similar results. To explain these concepts further, let’s look at the issue of Independence. I think you’ll agree that asking someone’s opinion on Independence is a valid way of measuring their views. And you yourself, Sir, pointed out that the results have been consistent for 18 months, thus are reliable.

There may, of course be some issues in which there are wide fluctuations. For instance, the Premier’s approval rating may be high in one poll and low in the next depending on how he is perceived to be handling issues of public importance. And this raises another issue — polls are a snapshot in time which is why they are conducted frequently.

CORDELL W. RILEY

Former Research Statistician

Medical advice takenApril 11, 2006Dear Sir,I write in response to a letter from Dr. Joseph Froncioni in today’s paper entitled “No eye protection”.

As the National Governing Body for the sport of squash, we are committed to ensuring the safety of all our players, both adult and junior. While we can only advise our adult players on safety issues; we insist that juniors wear eye protection on court at all times during all of our Junior Programme and Schools Programme sessions.

As part of the Virtual Spectator Bermuda Masters 2006 week, we hosted a United States Squash Racquets Association sanctioned children’s tournament for local and overseas juniors. This tournament was a great success giving our young players experience of playing against new competition. Every child in this tournament was required to wear eye protection.

The recipients of the Children’s Health Week scholarships were on court with the world’s best squash players (in Kion’s case, with a player who was the world number 1 for the whole of 2005), and so could not be in safer hands on a squash court.

However, having said the above, Dr. Froncioni makes a very valid and important point. Regardless of the fact that the risk of injury to our scholarship winners was negligible, we must ensure that we send the right message out to our young athletes and, with hindsight, they should have been provided with eye protection.

For the record, I would like to correct one point in Dr. Froncioni’s letter: the Virtual Spectator Bermuda Masters 2006 was not sanctioned by the United States Squash Racquets Association, but by the Professional Squash Association.

The BSRA is committed to promoting safety in our sport and has thriving Schools and Junior Programmes with exemplary safety records. I regret that we missed this opportunity to publicly deliver this important injury prevention message, but assure Dr. Froncioni that we do deliver this message to every child who walks through the BSRA’s doors.

IAN SHARPER

President

Bermuda Squash Racquets Association Better than duct tapeApril 5, 2006Dear Sir,I draw your attention to the deplorable condition of the post slots at the St. George’s Post Office.

Whilst this is not very important, nor is it dangerous, it is something that can be remedied fairly easily. There is no need to rip the present one out (to unnecessary expense) and replace with a new one. It would give a much better appearance if the upper slots, which are covered with peeling strips of duct tape (for some reason), could be covered with a neat plate of brushed chrome to match the remainder of the fixtures. There are many other acceptable alternatives: plastic, wood, etc. — anything is better than scrappy duct tape!

Remember, many tourists use our post offices and they probably get the impression that we are a “tatty” bunch!

Also, it would be good maintenance practice to wipe over the post box fronts with a suitable polishing cleaner; they would last a lot longer.

BARBARA D. ATWOOD

St. George’s