Statistics often help present things from a different perspective.  It's not necessarily a better perspective, but it's nice to have multiple views on an issue in order to form a sound opinion. 

This week Toyota has gotten a first hand look at statistics, and it ain't pretty.  For years now, surveys, consumer groups, and sales numbers have suggested that Toyota is one of the most respected auto companies when it comes to quality and getting a good car for the price.  However, a rare -- but potentially deadly -- problem with the gas pedal is threatening to ruin that reputation.

They're not sure how many instances there have been where the gas pedal stuck or returned to idle too slowly, but there have been only 2 or 3 confirmed cases.  If they look hard enough, maybe they'll find 20 or 30 cases.  Contrast that with the amount of cars on the road.  Since 2000 Toyota has averaged about 2 million U.S. auto sales each year, for a total of about 20 million cars over 10 years.  This recall involves 5.3 million vehicles!  That's more than a quarter of all vehicles they've sold in the U.S. since 2000.

One simple flaw in only one out of thousands of auto components is bringing down the quality leader of the auto industry.  I find that amazing!

Let's look at it another way.  There are hundreds of parts in a car that you don't want to fail while you're driving.  Toyota has provided maybe 99.999% perfection in all those parts, but 20 or 30 faulty gas pedals (i.e. that last 0.001%) has brought them down.

In the auto industry, you need to be successful more than 99.999% of the time.  While in baseball, if you hit the ball 30% of the time (batting .300) you're considered a great offensive player.  OK, maybe that's not fair since baseball really isn't a life and death event. 

What other issues require near perfect results?  How about emails, texting, and blog posts?  Taking perfection to the social level, consider how much damage could be done by only a few words.  You may be the greatest, nicest, most thoughtful person someone has ever known, but with only a few poorly chosen words in an email, you could erase all of that.  It's amazing how long it takes to build trust and respect, but how instantly it can be lost -- and that's true for your friend or your car company.

Mathematically speaking, that doesn't seem fair.  Our brains seem to be wired such that the positive slope of goodness over time is relatively flat, but when the slope becomes negative, the graph becomes a sheer cliff.  We can't change it so we just have to deal with it.  And as our favorite statistician Marge Innovera would say, "A slight deviation from the mean can cause a regression you'll later regret."  How true!