Question from Bubsy:
Are we actually cursed? Hear me out:
Last year, our car got hit 5 times while it was parked! I could see this happening once or even twice, but 5 times????
This year our car got dinged twice in parking lots, many many oil repairs, yesterday a person driving next to us made a lane change and swiped us, then today a stone hit our car, and broke the windshield. We just cannot catch a break. All our religious friends say it is a curse.
Answer by SmartLX:
Your religious friends would do well to check whether there is even such a thing as a curse of the right kind in their doctrines. They do exist in Christianity for instance, being powered by the devil so to speak, but simply accepting Jesus is protection enough that you can never be affected. (See here.) So if you’re religious yourself you can answer the question of whether it even CAN be a curse in your worldview.
If you’re getting hit a lot while parked, there are all kinds of obvious questions about where you park, how big your car is, your own driving skills, etc. Similar practical considerations can significantly affect the probabilities of all your other misfortunes. The recurring oil issue for example is down to the condition of your car and the competence (and ethics) of your regular mechanic. All up you’ve mentioned a total of nine events over two years (not counting the oil thing) which could of course be explained by pure bad luck, or some bad luck combined with poor general attitudes to driving in your area.
From a statistical perspective, someone who serves as an outlier (i.e. getting “favoured” way more than the average) is always going to wonder whether something special is going on, but in the vast population of motorists there are almost certain to be some outliers at any given time. (What are the chances that no one in the whole country will be super unlucky?) The chances of winning the lottery are incredibly slim, but there’s regularly a jackpot winner from somewhere (though they really come up against the odds when it comes to winning a second time).
My advice is simply to continue to drive and park with care, and if no one is actually out there gunning for you, you’ll eventually tend towards the average rate of car-damaging events, whatever that is. I tried to look it up but there aren’t many statistics outside of fatal accidents.