Each year the UK Department of Trade and Industry produces its Home and Leisure Accident Surveillance System report, listing the numbers of accidents from various causes in the home. And each year it is summarised in New Scientist's Feedback column, http://www.newscientist.com/feedback/ as it is hilarious (well to those of us fortunate not to suffer such an incident.
For example, 37 accidents caused by tea-cosies (the wooly covers for a tea pot for you coffe drinking nations); hospitalisations caused by socks and tights are up to 10,773. And if you thought putting the socks and tights in the laundry basket and closing the lid would keep you safe, 3421 people were attacked, sorry - injured, by clothes baskets, no doubt egged on by all those malicious socks and tights!

Well worth a visit to the site, just try to imagine how some of the accidents could have happened

Rod

Thanks for the link, Rod. It seems that the Monty Python crew had it right when they wrote about torture by stuffed pillows and comfy chairs.

Dear Rod: The list of accidents fail to mention the most dangerous item in the house - the bed. Do you realise how many people die in a bed?

Do you realise how many people die in a bed

But that's because the socks, trousers, bean bags, laundry baskets, etc. sneak up on them while they're asleep!
Rod

There is a mobile phone ad shown in the theatre here that also advises one should avoid staying at home too long, because most accidents happen there (35%?). In the animated commercial a man drills through what turns out to be a VERY thin dividing wall with a long drill bit. A man happens to be reading in his rocking-chair on the side and gets it straight through the head. Based on a real occurance?

Well, I did read that most car accidents occurred within a few miles of home. As a result I did the only rational thing possible: I moved.

well- one of my favorite sites is the "darwin awards" http://www.darwinawards.com/ where awards are always award postumously-- since winner are those members of the human race that have been kind enough to remove themselves from the gene pool.

some of the winner have done some very stange things-- ("amuzed" themselves by using a trash shute as a ride-- and gone head first down a shute-- only to land head first into a metal dumpster (skip)!)-- I also like the "honorable mention" group --(HM goes to people who survived their "ideas" --Like the one about the man who 1st cut a wasps nest in half with a chain saw (about 150 wasp stings) and later--ie, after he came back from hospital emergency room-- decided to burn the nest-- so he doused it with gas (petrol) and then went to get a match-- the gas vaporized-- and he blew up the nest- and made a fire ball that burned off his eyebrows-- and gave him 1st degree burns on his face and hands..(this man started out to prune a hedge)

I can see how, in some peoples hands, even a tea cosy could be dangerous.

So much for statistics...

These aren't the real numbers, but they are close and *prove the 'point'.

80% of all auto accidents happen within 3 miles of the home.

- but

90% of all trips stay within 3 miles of the home.

It's like saying 98% of all accidents happen to people.

>>So much for statistics...

There was an add on the radio for the Phonics Game (a game to teach children how to read) and they stated the shocking fact that in the LA County school district almost half of the children scored below average on a reading test. These are the kinds of statistics that make it into most adverts and news items because they seem so clear.

Well what can we say? LA is clearly not Lake Woebegone-- where all the men are good looking, all the woman are strong, and all the children are above average.

I am reminded of the riddle-- what do you call the person who graduated at the very botton of the class from medical school?
Doctor

I keep getting a Socket Error connection refused message from the New Scientist site. Could some kind soul copy and paste the article for me.

Bingley

Bingley,
I get an error on the feedback portion of the New Scientist site now. I will let you all know when I can get there again.

Thanks Jackie for posting it. The glitch at the original site seems to have gone now.
Rod

Kind Soul reporting in, sir:

9 June 2001

EACH YEAR around this time Feedback's favourite government report appears--the Home and Leisure Accident Surveillance System report from Britain's Department of Trade and Industry. It gives figures for accidents reported by people admitted to a sample group of British hospitals and then gives extrapolated estimates for the country as a whole.

First the bad news in this year's report, which is based on 1999 data: the toll of accidents caused by tea cosies is up again, with a national estimate of 37 tea cosy injuries, compared with 20 the previous year. Equally alarming, the number of accidents caused by place mats--a menace we have paid too little attention to in the past--is up from 157 to 165 across the country as a whole.

These worrying figures are somewhat balanced by a welcome decline in another area of concern--sponge and loofah accidents. The shocking previous total of 996 nationwide is now down to 787.

But the major causes of concern are still with us. The number of people hospitalised after a trouser accident (up from 5137 to 5945) is worryingly high, while the drop in injuries inflicted by armchairs (down from 18,690 to 16,662) leaves little room for complacency. Hospitalisations caused by socks and tights have also risen (10,773 compared to 9843 previously), while injuries inflicted by vegetables remain unacceptably high at 13,132 compared with the previous year's 12,362.

The number of accidents involving tree trunks has also risen from 1777 to 1810, while leaf accidents have soared from 664 to 1171, with a similar increase in bird-bath accidents from 117 to 311.

Many people will also be shocked by the number of accidents caused by beanbags, which has risen from 957 to 1317. The seriousness of this menace becomes clear when measured against the 329 injuries caused by meat cleavers or the 439 caused by rat or mouse poison.

In fact, the report makes it clearer than ever that our homes are full of unacknowledged dangers. It identifies 3421 people nationwide as having been injured by clothes baskets, while other threats include dust pans (146 injuries), bread bins (91), talcum powder (73), toilet-roll holders (329), clogs (622), false teeth (933) and wellington boots (5615).

As in the past, printed magazines like New Scientist caused far more injuries than chainsaws--4371 compared with 1207.

So remember--you can't be too careful.

the shocking fact that in the LA County school district almost half of the children scored below average on a reading test.

If the group is large enough to follow a normal distribution (bell curve or Gaussian distribution) then of course half would score below average, and half would score above average (mean = median for this distribution)!

This is reminiscent of the argument that "[insert province]'s [insert medical professional] are the lowest paid in the country, and isn't that scandalous?" Well, if they weren't, someone else would be!

OK, I am prepared to believe in the vicious and unprovoked nastiness of socks and talcum powder. But exactly how 13,132 people managed to injure themselves with a vegetable is probably more information than I need to know...!

I need to know what *percentage of them were women.

e-mu....you are sooo sick. But in a weird way. :>

consuelo

" the shocking fact that in the LA County school district almost half of the children scored below average
on a reading test."

Insert two words writer forgot and it makes sense.

the shocking fact that in the LA County school district almost half of the children scored below the national average
on a reading test.

" the shocking fact that in the LA County school district almost half of the children scored below average
on a reading test."

WWh noted :Insert two words writer forgot and it makes sense.

the shocking fact that in the LA County school district almost half of the children scored below the national average on a reading test.

And even more sense if you say "...on a reading test in standard English." Many youngsters in LA County are children of immigrants and are probably fluent in a language (or two) other than English/American. Sadly, more than can be said for most of children in many other US school districts.

There's hope for me yet!!!

the shocking fact that in the LA County school district almost half of the children scored below the national average on a reading test.

Yeah, but if there are enough kids (more than, say, a couple of hundred) in the LA County school district, they should follow the same distribution as all the kids in the country, and half should fall above the average, and half should fall below. And their average score should be the same as the national average.