Another 12 months, a second poll calming public support for RLC. Sample size 508 out of a region with over 2 million in it.
Quote: "A Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9 poll found 62 percent of residents favor the cameras. A third oppose them, while 4 percent aren't sure."
The problem: "The poll was conducted by telephone of 508 Pinellas and Hillsborough county adults Dec. 3-11. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.3 percentage points."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampa,_Florida Quote: "Today, Tampa is a part of the metropolitan area most commonly referred to as the Tampa Bay Area. For U.S. Census purposes, Tampa is part of the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida MSA. The four-county area is composed of roughly 2.7 million residents, making it the second largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA)"
So how does a poll of 508 people out of easily a million plus in the sample are be representative of the voters. It can't.
This isn't the first poll on this subject here.
A similar poll was done last year by this same paper and Bay News 9. http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/strong-support-for-red-light-cameras-in-hillsborough-pinellas/1142335 (2010).
The problem with that poll was that the same company that did that RLC poll ADG did another poll on the transit tax. (and it shows the problem with some of these phone polls).
http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/dailyloaf/2010/10/09/new-poll-shows-transit-tax-in-hillsborough-winning/ Quote: The first high-profile public poll on the 1 cent sales tax for transportation in Hillsborough County was published Saturday morning, and it shows the controversial measure winning, 51%-39%, with 10% still undecided.
The poll was was produced for the St. Petersburg Times/Bay News 9. and conducted by American Directions Group, a research company out of Washington D.C., which has a local office in Lakeland.
What happened on Election day:
Quote: "But some officials are reluctant to start taking on transit so soon after the Hillsborough initiative got trounced in the polls by a 58-42 margin."
The problem with phone polls are many.
1. Small sample size. The latest poll as 508 people in two counties.
2. Times when they called. (I was called on a poll in the middle of the day at my own home on a workday. I was working in my home office at the time.). If you are calling in the middle of the day when most people are at work, and most people work during the day, how can that be representative.
(Put it another way, if I were to do a poll on reforming social security and asked the question in the middle of the day where I would get people who don't work (and might be older) I would get one result. If I were to ask it later and get people who work I might get another result).
3. How many voters were under 30, 30 to 40, 50 to 60, and over 60. Older voters tend to buy the scamera line more than younger voters. (There was some breakdowns in the poll, but no breakdown of how many were over 55 for example. If out of the 508, 300 were over age 55 that will skew the results).
In fact one poster had this to say on the poll:
RAGINGLEO Jan 1, 2012 6:54 AM
508 is staticticly of no consquence, too small a portion in an area of - Hillsbourgh county 1,229,226, and Pinellas county 916,542. total, for 2010, is 2,145,768 piople. Sample group represents 0.00002367 of 1 percent. I do agree that running red lights is a problem that should be addressed. I do NOT agree that the camera's are the way to do it. You want to stop red light running make the fine $1500.00 first offense, $3000.00 second offense, etc, etc. Hey, if it is such a problem then make the fine ruinous. If you really want it stopped, then do it. The camera's and the $158.00 fine are just a big joke. They make money for the Govenment. If it is not about the money then make it a non-profit opperation. Pay for the things involved with running it, but make NO money for the municipality involved. Put some motorcycle cops out on the courners and let them write of BIG citations and this will be deterred. I know I am such a HATER.
Subscribe to this comment's feed