HAHA Jeff Lee your post was classic! I definitely know the feeling of the left leg going numb, the right thumb feeling like the line lock button is piercing through it, etc. Why are you bringing the Rs up before your top yellow comes on though?
Anyway, I have to disagree with you and stand behind my original post. I also think Bill D is making perfect sense here! And to the modest fellow who says "I shouldn't have went red so I deserved to lose" is being a little too modest.
Here is the best I can do, here it is in stat terms and I promise you will not hear anything out of me on this topic anymore. We will use discrete probability and analyze our sample space of four possible outcomes:
both drivers green, first guy green and second guy red, first guy red and second guy green, both drivers red. In order for an event to be a "fair" event in the world of probability, all possible outcomes but possess equal probability, in this case each of the 4 outcomes should have a probability of
1/4 or .25. With our current system, the first two scenarios possess a probability of
.25 (Probability of first guy going green = .5 AND probability of second guy going green = .5 so we multiply these to get a probability of .25 for this outcome. Same calculation for second outcome)
However, the third scenario possesses a probability of
1/2 or .5. (Probability of first guy going red = .5 AND probability of second guy going green = 1 since he/she has already won. Multiply these and we get .5). The probability of the last event is actually 0 because currently it can't happen and we revert to scenario 3. Since each outcome doesn't have the same probability, this event fails the "fair" event test.
Conclusion: The first driver to leave is 25% more likely to lose the race on the starting line than the second driver. Sounds like an awful lot to me! Alright I'm a nerd, look what school has done to me..
