The magic of numbers

I remember the last time I had an accident in my car. I say an accident, but I was entirely culpable. I was late. It was dark and wet and I was driving too fast for the conditions. As I rounded a bend in the road, doing 43.2 mph I was confronted by the red tail lights of a stack of traffic held up in front of me. I ploughed into the back of a 4X4. No-one was hurt, but my car was damaged enough for me to have to abandon my journey.

The odd thing was that when I looked at the odometer it read 70,000.0 miles.

Of course, that number is no more significant than 72,865.7 but we want to attach significance to round numbers. That old car limped on to 131,875.3 miles, about which I have absolutely nothing to say. Perhaps it would have been more perfect had I scrapped it after the accident. Superstition would have forced me to.

Of course the realy significant number was the 43.2 mph and if you go to this website you will see why.