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Greg · 08-03-2007, 01:23 PM

Hmmm... considering that there are a fantastically high number of bridges in the world, it doesn't surprise me at all that some muck-raking reporter on your faithful Ayeverbless News variety show found an incident where there was a bridge inspector who didn't have the official license hanging on his wall. It's another example of how the news is no longer about news; it's just about the weird, the bizarre, the fringe.

I was snooping around, trying to find out how many bridges there on in the world, just to get a sense of the scale of the question. Pittsburgh says it is offically the city with the most bridges in the world, with 446 bridges. On the other hand, New York City claims to have 2,027 bridges.

Consider: Large cities have hundreds or thousands of bridges. This almost intelligible essay says that there are 19,355 cities in the United States if you have to include Pittsburgh. (So what's this thing with Pittsburgh?)

Just wild-guessing that the average city has about 100 bridges, that means there are about 2 million bridges in the cities of the United States. (That wouldn't include unincorporated rural areas.) It might be a million; might be ten million; but at least we have know that the number is hugely huge.

So, if you were a lazy, sensationalistic reporter looking for an opportunity to do some hate-mongering instead of having to find some real news to report, what are the chances that you would fail in your quest to find some kind of anomaly regarding the inspection of bridges?

Nope, it's nothing to get excited about.

In fact, the incredibly good news is that the reporter found only one incident, out of what must be hundreds of thousands of bridge inspectors in just the USA; and don't forget that the USA is only 5% of the total world's population.

Consider: Out of those umpty million bridges in the United States, how many have collapsed in the past year? In the last decade? In the last century? Bridge failures are momentous events in engineering history, but the number of notable bridge failures is at most in the dozens, definitely not in the hundreds. Dozens, out of millions of bridges; no doubt tens of millions in the world as a whole.

08-03-2007, 01:23 PM	#11
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	Hmmm... considering that there are a fantastically high number of bridges in the world, it doesn't surprise me at all that some muck-raking reporter on your faithful Ayeverbless News variety show found an incident where there was a bridge inspector who didn't have the official license hanging on his wall. It's another example of how the news is no longer about news; it's just about the weird, the bizarre, the fringe. I was snooping around, trying to find out how many bridges there on in the world, just to get a sense of the scale of the question. Pittsburgh says it is offically the city with the most bridges in the world, with 446 bridges. On the other hand, New York City claims to have 2,027 bridges. Consider: Large cities have hundreds or thousands of bridges. This almost intelligible essay says that there are 19,355 cities in the United States if you have to include Pittsburgh. (So what's this thing with Pittsburgh?) Just wild-guessing that the average city has about 100 bridges, that means there are about 2 million bridges in the cities of the United States. (That wouldn't include unincorporated rural areas.) It might be a million; might be ten million; but at least we have know that the number is hugely huge. So, if you were a lazy, sensationalistic reporter looking for an opportunity to do some hate-mongering instead of having to find some real news to report, what are the chances that you would fail in your quest to find some kind of anomaly regarding the inspection of bridges? Nope, it's nothing to get excited about. In fact, the incredibly good news is that the reporter found only one incident, out of what must be hundreds of thousands of bridge inspectors in just the USA; and don't forget that the USA is only 5% of the total world's population. Consider: Out of those umpty million bridges in the United States, how many have collapsed in the past year? In the last decade? In the last century? Bridge failures are momentous events in engineering history, but the number of notable bridge failures is at most in the dozens, definitely not in the hundreds. Dozens, out of millions of bridges; no doubt tens of millions in the world as a whole. __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?