Traveling on the Pennsylvania Turnpike - Part 2

On our way from Somerset to Reading we were traveling on Pennsylvania's main highway, the the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It is a toll road, and not very scenic, but it gets you to where you want to go pretty fast.

Once you get on the toll road, there is no way to get off without paying, there are toll booths at every exit. This means that the road does not go through any towns, and so you can't just pull over to have a snack or take care of restroom needs. To help travelers, there are so called Service Plazas along the road with tourist information, shops, and restaurants.

We stopped at one of these service centers, and had a cup of coffee at Starbucks. At the counter where you add sugar and cream to your coffee, I found a little questionnaire. You can see the cover on the left, and you can click the picture to see the inside of the questionnaire. It is asking costumers to fill out the questionnaire and mail it in.

Your job is to answer the following question: Which sampling method is Starbucks using for tis study? Explain how you decided on the answer.
Here is a picture of me at the Travel Plaza:

Rainfall

Lately there have been a lot of talk about Hurricanes wrecking the coastal regions of the US. The latest one on the news is Hurricane Ike. One statistic that I heard about this hurricane was that here in Los Angeles we have had 0.16 inches of rainfall from March 2008 to September 2008, while Hurricane Ike produced 15.75 inches of rain in just a few days in Houston, Texas.

Below are the graphs that show the average precipitation for the two cities from The Weather Channel Click on the image to enlarge it and see the numbers clearer.
Your job is to answer the following questions:

1. About how many years of average Los Angeles precipitation would equal the rainfall produced by Ike in Houston?
2. About how many months of average Houston precipitation would equal the rainfall produced by Ike?

Remember to explain how you found the answers to the questions.

The Oinkster: A Slow Fast Food Restaurant

During one of those hot hot Spring weekends, we decided to go out and have a hamburger to lunch. We picked a restaurant called "The Oinkster." Their motto is that they are a slow fast food restaurant. I think they mean that they serve traditional fast food type dishes, but they prepare it fresh, and so you need to wait for it a little bit.

We had our burgers, and fries, and salad, and we were just about ready to leave when I noticed a little survey on the table. I took one with me, click the Oinkster logo below to see it.

Your job is to look at the survey and answer these questions:

1. What type of sampling method is Oinkster using for this survey? Explain/justify your answer.
2. Describe another sampling method they could have used.
3. What would be the best way to sample Oinkster customers for this survey?
   

NASA Survey

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently released the results of a survey conducted among airline pilots. The release of the results was delayed because NASA officials thought the findings would scare airline passengers. Here are some of the numbers as reported by the Associated Press.

The survey showed:

• 1,266 incidents in which aircraft flew within 500 feet of each other (near miss)
• 1,312 cases where pilots suddenly dropped or climbed accidentally more than 300 feet in flight
• 166 reports of pilots landing without clearance (permission) at an airport

What is your interpretation of this data? Do you find it scary? Can you tell the true meaning of these numbers? What additional information would help make sense of the information?