Book of Odds
Page 31
1 in 6,400
SOURCES: National Center for Statistics and Analysis, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Traffic Safety Facts, 2009 Data (DOT HS 811 402). US Census Bureau, 2010 Census, Summary Data File 1, P2.
Driving Can Be a
Hazardous Pursuit
The odds a licensed driver will be involved in a motor vehicle accident in a year:
16–20 1 in 9.7
21–24 1 in 12.3
25–34 1 in 19
35–44 1 in 22.5
45–54 1 in 26
55–64 1 in 33.4
65–74 1 in 39.8
75 or older 1 in 43.8
SOURCE: National Center for Statistics and Analysis, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Traffic Safety Facts, 2009 Data (DOT HS 811 402).
The odds a person will visit an emergency room due to an accident involving nursery equipment in a year: 1 in 2,898
The odds a person will visit an emergency room due to an accident involving toys in a year: 1 in 1,280
SOURCE: US Consumer Product Safety Commission, National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) Data Highlights—2010, http://www.cpsc.gov/LIBRARY/neiss.html.
Is Grandpa Really the Worst Driver?
There are more and more people carrying AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) cards navigating our roads. The percentage of the population 65 or older with driver’s licenses rose from 63% in 1982 to around 85% in 2008. Currently, the odds are 1 in 1.1 a person 70–74 has a valid driver’s license; for those 75–79, the odds are 1 in 1.3; 1 in 1.7 for adults 85 and up.
2008 was the first year in which there were more female drivers licensed than males, but among the older age groups, male drivers still outnumber female.
But when it comes to accidents, the most dangerous drivers are between the ages of 16 and 20, followed by those 21–34. Drivers aged 65 and older are the third-highest risk group, followed by drivers 35–54 and 55–64.
What gives? Are the results skewed by the fact that younger drivers log more miles? No. A 2005 Dutch study comparing drivers who drove similar distances in a year found that those age 75 and up were safer drivers than all other drivers. Only seniors who drove fewer than about 1,900 miles a year—just over 10% of all older drivers in the survey—had elevated crash rates. Despite being better drivers, older drivers are more prone to injury. When car crashes do occur, older drivers are more likely to suffer serious injuries or die than younger people.
Older drivers are also less likely to be inebriated, according to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In 2008, only 5% of drivers over 65 in fatal crashes had blood alcohol content of .08 or higher, compared to 17% of drivers age 16–20 and 32% of drivers age 21–34. Two studies suggest that the critical factor when it comes to aging and driving is the “useful field of view”—basically the area in which you notice things without moving your eyes or turning your head. Among older drivers, those whose field of view had decreased were six times as likely to be involved in crashes; a separate 2009 study also found reduced field of view correlated with a high likelihood of running red lights. Other factors, such as advancing age and cognitive status, had very little effect on the chances of being in accidents.
SOURCES: Federal Highway Administration, Highway Statistics 2008, http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2008/. J Ebarhard, “Older Drivers’ ‘High Per-Mile Crash Involvement’: The Implications for Licensing Authorities,” Traffic Injury Prevention 9(4), August 2008: 284–290. J Langford, M Methorst, L Hakamies-Blomquist, “Older Drivers Do Not Have a High Crash Risk: A Replication of Low Mileage Bias,” Accident Analysis and Prevention 38(3), May 2006: 574–578. K Ball, C Owsley, ME Sloan, DE Roenker, JR Bruni, “Visual Attention Problems as a Predictor of Vehicle Crashes in Older Drivers,” Investigative Journal of Ophthalmology and Visual Science 34, 1993: 3110–3123. SK West, DV Hahn, C Baldwin, T Dunkin, BE Munoz, KA Turano, et al., “Older Drivers and Failure to Stop at Red Lights,” Journal of Gerontology 65A(2), 2010: 179–183. National Center for Statistics and Analysis, National Highway Traffic Safety Administation, Traffic Safety Facts, 2008 Data (DOT HS 811 170).
The odds a driver 18 or older has ever nodded off or fallen asleep while driving: 1 in 3.6
The odds a driver 18 or older will have an accident or near accident due to driving while he or she is drowsy in a year: 1 in 100
SOURCE: National Sleep Foundation, 2009 Sleep in America Poll, March 2009.
GENDER WARS
Women Drivers vs. Men Drivers
The odds a female licensed driver will be involved in a motor vehicle accident in a year are 1 in 25.3, compapurple to 1 in 19.1 for a male. The odds a licensed driver involved in a fatal motor vehicle accident is female are 1 in 3.8; odds for male 1 in 1.4.
SOURCE: National Center for Statistics and Analysis, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Traffic Safety Facts, 2009 Data (DOT HS 811 402).
Numbers Tell the Story
The odds a driver involved in a motor vehicle accident resulting in injury was wearing a seat belt: 1 in 1.1
The odds a driver involved in a motor vehicle accident resulting in injury was not wearing a seat belt: 1 in 27.8
The odds a passenger vehicle occupant killed in an accident was wearing a seat belt: 1 in 2.3
The odds a passenger vehicle occupant killed in an accident was not wearing a seat belt: 1 in 2
The odds a passenger vehicle driver killed in an accident was wearing a seat belt: 1 in 2
The odds a passenger vehicle driver killed in an accident was not wearing a seat belt: 1 in 2.4
SOURCE: National Center for Statistics and Analysis, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Traffic Safety Facts, 2009 Data (DOT HS 811 402).
Drinkers Aren’t the Only
Dangerous Drivers on the Road
A driver who is sending text messages is twenty-three times more likely to be involved in a car accident, according to a simulation by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.
The Virginia Tech study tracked truck drivers over an eighteen-month period using video cameras installed in their cabs. When drivers who were texting crashed, a review of the footage revealed their attention had been diverted from the road for an average of five seconds. A similar study done at the University of Utah used a sophisticated driving simulator to track college-aged drivers and found they were eight times more likely to get into an accident if they were texting. Those students were also distracted for approximately five seconds prior to the crash.
The odds an adult who uses text messaging has sent or read a text message while driving are 1 in 2.1.
SOURCES: Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, “New Data VTTI Provides Insight into Cell Phone Use and Driving Distraction.” M Maden, L Rainie, Adults and Cell Phone Distractions, Pew Research Center, June 18, 2010.
Roadkill
The odds a collision on the roads of Michigan will involve a deer are 1 in 5.3. The odds such a collision will result in a human fatality are 1 in 5,630. It is more than five times as likely that an accidental death was caused by a fall from a tree (1 in 1,101) than it is that a collision with a deer in Michigan proved fatal to a human.
Though states like Michigan carefully document deer-related crashes, none tracks how many animals are killed or injured on the roads of America every year. This is where Brewster Bartlett, also known as Dr. Splatt, comes in. Since 1992, Splatt and his colleagues have maintained the RoadKill database, a repository of information about flattened animals. Added to annually by students and adult enthusiasts, it represents one of the few concerted efforts to gather knowledge about nonhuman traffic deaths. They’ve found that 50% of animals killed on the road are gray squirrels. There is also a category for unidentifiable blobs.
SOURCES: Michigan State Police, Traffic Crash Statistics, http://www.michigan.gov/msp/0,4643,7-123-1645_3501_4626---,00.html. B Bartlett et al., RoadKill 2012, Edutel Technology, http://roadkill.edutel.com/.
Horse vs. Hog
A horse may be more likely to land you in a hospital than a Harley.
The odds a person will visit an emergency room due to a horseback riding accident in a year are 1 in 4,492. Most of these accidents are caused when a horse bucks or bolts, throwing the rider, and female injury rates are typically higher.
Trying to figure out which activity is more likely to kill you is hard because numbers associated with being killed while riding a horse aren’t fully tallied. Many horse accidents occur on private property and tend not to generate police reports.
Statistics on motorcycle deaths, however, are readily available and the numbers are stark. In 2009, 4,462 motorcyclists died in accidents, and 90,000 were injured out of a total of 7,929,724 registered motorcycles. Compare that to 2,116 killed and 53,000 injured out of a total of 3,826,373 registered motorcycles in 1997—in one decade, the number of injuries almost doubled, and deaths more than doubled. The odds a motorcyclist will be injured in an accident in a year are 1 in 88.1. The odds a motorcyclist will be killed in an accident in a year are 1 in 1,777. The odds a rider killed in a motorcycle accident in a year was not wearing a helmet are 1 in 2.3.
History bears out just how risky both motorcycling and horseback riding can be. Horseback riding is thought to have resulted in the deaths of historical figures such as Mongol emperor Genghis Khan, and injuries from it are known to have resulted in the death of Ellen Church (the first airline stewardess). Motorcycle accidents have claimed the lives of astronaut Pete Conrad (the third man to walk on the moon) and British military officer T. E. Lawrence “of Arabia.”
After treating T. E. Lawrence’s fatal head wounds, neurosurgeon Hugh Cairns pioneered research that ultimately led to the widespread use of motorcycle helmets.
SOURCES: US Consumer Product Safety Commission, National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) Data Highlights—2010, http://www.cpsc.gov/LIBRARY/neiss.html. C Floyd, P Evans, “Helmets, Heads and Health for Horse Enthusiasts,” 4H/Equine/2009-04pr, Utah State University, August 2009. DJ Caine, Equestrian Injuries: Sports Injuries, Mechanisms, Prevention and Treatment. National Center for Statistics and Analysis, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Traffic Safety Facts, 2009 Data (DOT HS 811 402).
You can learn a lot from horses, such as not to walk behind them.
What the French mathematician Siméon Denis Poisson learned from the randomness of people being kicked by horses in nineteenth-century Paris was a distribution in active use in statistics today, called the Poisson distribution.
SOURCE: Z Turpin, “Behind the Numbers: Who’s Going Through a Toll Booth First?,” Ask Poisson, http://www.bookofodds.com/Daily-Life-Activities/Transportation/Articles/A0278-Behind-the-Numbers-Who-s-Going-Through-a-Toll-Booth-First-Ask-Poisson.
The odds a licensed driver will not pass a written driver’s test: 1 in 5
SOURCE: General Motors Acceptance Corporation, “Executive Summary,” 2009 GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test.
More Danger Behind the Wheel
According to the Center for Injury Research and Policy in Columbus, Ohio, the number of Americans injured by golf carts has skyrocketed in recent years, from 5,772 in 1990 to 13,411 in 2006—an increase of 132% over this period. In 2010, the odds of being injured in a golf cart incident were 1 in 22,355. But only half of those injuries took place on a golf course.
SOURCES: Center for Injury Research and Policy, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, “First National Study to Examine Golf Cart–Related Injuries,” press release, June 10, 2008. Book of Odds estimate based on a query of 2010 data in the US Consumer Product Safety Commission National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) database.
Some Travel Is Vertical
The odds an adult is afraid of being alone in an elevator: 1 in 10
The odds a person will visit an emergency room due to an injury involving elevators in a year: 1 in 12,928
SOURCES: National Center for Statistics and Analysis, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Traffic Safety Facts, 2009 Data (DOT HS 811 402). Harris Interactive, “What We Are Afraid Of,” Harris Poll #49, press release, August 18, 1999.
The Most Vertical Spaceflight Is Downright Dangerous
1 in 3
The odds a manned spaceflight will suffer a problem that threatens completion of the mission and the lives of the astronauts.
1 in 49.3
The odds an astronaut will be killed during a mission.
SOURCE: Encyclopedia Astronautica, http://www.astronautix.com/index.html.
The odds a fatal motor vehicle crash will involve street racing: 1 in 475
SOURCE: S Knight, LJ Cook, LM Olson, “The Fast and the Fatal: Street Racing Fatal Crashes in the United States,” Injury Prevention 10, 2004: 53–55.
Is It Safer to
Take the Subway?
It crosses the mind of every subway rider: what if some lunatic shoves me in front of an oncoming train?
It’s such a common fear that 80% of New York City subway passengers admit to taking precautions against being pushed, even though it is extremely uncommon—a New York subway rider’s odds of being fatally pushed in front of a train in a year are less than 1 in 2,211,000,000.
You’re likelier to accidentally fall on the tracks, or to jump on purpose.
Out of 668 New York subway-related deaths between 1990 and 2003, 343 were suicides, 315 accidents, and 10 homicides, including those involving weapons. Injuries for those who survive subway-related trauma can be life-changing. According to a study of 208 subway-related injuries treated at Bellevue Hospital, 1 in 4.7 people injured in subway incidents in New York City will undergo an amputation, typically a major one. 1 in 5.5 will lose one or more limbs and 1 in 34.7 will undergo a minor amputation.
1 in 5.1 people injured in subway incidents in New York City is female; the odds a person injured is male are 1 in 1.3.
SOURCES: T Diflo, AA Guth, A O’Neill, HL Pachter, “Public Health Lessons Learned in Analysis of New York City Subway Injuries,” American Journal of Public Health 96(4), April 2006: 631–633. RR Gershon, JM Pearson, V Nandi, D Vlahov, A Bucciarelli-Prann, M Tracy, et al., “Epidemiology of Subway-Related Fatalities in New York City, 1990–2003,” Journal of Safety Research 39(6), 2008: 583–588.
Daring Pursuits
Jumping from a plane or a high place would qualify as daring but the odds of dying varies significantly depending on what you jump from. Skydiving is done from an aircraft, and if done from sufficient altitude allows time for free fall, control, and several minutes of drifting down with the parachute open.
The odds skydiving will result in the death of the jumper are 1 in 101,100. This is about the odds a person will visit an emergency room in a year due to an accident involving a drinking straw.
BASE jumping is done from a fixed base. The acronym BASE stands for “Buildings, Antennas, Spans, Earth.” Parachuting from a bridge or a cliff is much more dangerous since the altitude is generally lower and the object jumped from is nearby.
According to a British study of 106 deaths from 1981 to 2006, the odds of a person who BASE jumps dying are 1 in 60. This is about the odds a teenager will be diagnosed with chlamydia in a year.
SOURCES: Bandolier, “Risk of Dying and Sporting Activities,” http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/booth/Risk/sports.html. US Consumer Product Safety Commission, National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) Data Highlights—2010, http://www.cpsc.gov/LIBRARY/neiss.html. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance, 2006, Atlanta, GA: US Department of Health and Human Services, November 2007.
What Causes Skydiving Fatalities?
The odds a skydiving fatality worldwide will be caused by:
a bad or hard landing 1 in 3.2
a malfunction 1 in 6
a collision 1 in 6.2
“other causes” 1 in 7
no pull or suicide 1 in 11.5
reserve problems 1 in
20.5
SOURCE: Book of Odds estimate based on data from Dropzone.com, “Fatalities by Year,” Dropzone.com Skydiving Fatalities Database.
The odds a person who died in a BASE jumping accident was American are 1 in 3.1. No other nationality comes close. Australians and Russians come next with the odds being 1 in 10.3 for each.
Overall the odds a person who died in a BASE jumping accident was not American are 1 in 1.5.
SOURCE: “Base Fatalities Statistics,” BLiNC Magazine, http://www.blincmagazine.com/forum/wiki/Fatality_Statistics, 1981–2010 data.
Air Is More Dangerous than Water
The odds a whitewater rafter 6 or older will die in a rafting accident in a year: 1 in 76,250
The odds a scuba diver 6 or older will die in a diving accident: 1 in 34,480
The odds a mountaineer 6 or older will die in a climbing accident: 1 in 179
SOURCES: AmericanWhitewater.org, Search Results Found 2009, Accident Database, Completed Safety Committee Reports. JJ Windsor, “Mountain Mortality: A Review of Deaths That Occur During Recreational Activities in the Mountains,” Postgrad Medical Journal 85, March 2009: 316–321.
Tamer Pursuits
Odds of Injury by Sport
The odds a:
football player will be injured while playing football in a year: 1 in 19.7
basketball player will be injured while playing basketball in a year: 1 in 48.7
skateboarder will be injured while skateboarding in a year: 1 in 58.2
soccer player will be injured while playing soccer in a year: 1 in 65.3
baseball player will be injured while playing baseball in a year: 1 in 69.3