Question

A company that offers roadside assistance to drivers reports that the probability that a call for assistance will be to help someone who is locked out of his or her car is \(0.18 .\) Give a relative frequency interpretation of this probability.

Short answer

In the long term, the company can expect about 18% of all their calls, or 18 out of every 100 calls, to be from people locked out of their cars.

Step-by-step solution

Understand the concept of relative frequency

Relative frequency gives a measure of the number of times a particular event occurs as a fraction of the total number of trials. It's often used as an estimate of probability. To attach a meaning to the abstract concept of probability in this case, we must talk in terms of the large number of trials.

Apply relative frequency to the given exercise

In this context, the given probability 0.18 means that if the company keeps receiving calls for assistance under the same conditions, then in the long run, about 18% of all calls or 18 out of every 100 calls will be from people who have locked themselves out of their cars.