Answer
The events "male" and "Wednesday" are independent because $P(male~|~Wednesday)\approx P(male)$
Work Step by Step
The sample space: 75,330 driver fatalities. So, $N(S)=75,330$
According to the marginal distribution (see page 235) of the first column: $N(male)=49,571$
Using the Empirical Approach (page 258):
$P(male)=\frac{N(male)}{N(S)}=\frac{49,571}{75,330}\approx0.6581$
According to the marginal distribution (see page 235) of the fourth row: $N(Wednesday)=8,793$
According to the cell in the fourth row, second column: $N(male~and~Wednesday)=5,782$
$P(male~|~Wednesday)=\frac{N(male~and~Wednesday)}{N(Wednesday)}=\frac{5,782}{8,793}\approx0.6576$
We are inclined to say that fatal crashes involving male (or female) drivers are independent of the day. If we round the results above to three decimal places:
$P(male)=\frac{N(male)}{N(S)}=\frac{49,571}{75,330}\approx0.658$
$P(male~|~Wednesday)\approx0.658$. So:
$P(male~|~Wednesday)\approx P(male)$
The events "male" and "Wednesday" are independent (see definition on page 292).
