I love my Freakonomics daily desk calendar.  Some totally random facts about totally random stuff.  I thought these three days last week were worth sharing.  For a little context, facts and figures are often bunched into a themed topic so here are the facts in the order I pulled them off.

10 December 2008 – On US roads, roughly 185,000 drivers, passengers, and motorcyclists have died since the last NASCAR racing death. (crazy to think about considering how fast those guys go)

11 December 2008 – According to the Centers for Disease Control, the rate of serious injury is higher for people who ride horses than for people who ride motorcycles.  (great argument for me getting a motorcycle one day.  yes I do want one, sorry mom.)

12 December 2008 – The people who get hurt riding horses are, like people who get hurt driving motor vehicles, often under the influence of alcohol. (You can get a ticket/arrested for riding a bike while drunk.  I wonder if you can get an RUI if you’re drunk on a horse.  What if the horse is drunk, but you’re sober?)

Interesting anecdote about the 10 December fact.  One of my poli sci professors in college had a pretty interesting life before he settled down and got his PhD.  He told a story once of hitchiking through Louisiana or some such place back in the day when hitchhiking was a more accepted form of transportation.  He said he got picked up by a guy who raced cars professionally at a pretty high level. The guy said he felt safer on the track than he did on regular roads because even though they were driving so fast, everyone knew what they were doing and weren’t near as likely to do something stupid that would cause an a wreck.