Every 48 seconds.
Last week, in Wellington, I saw an ad warning that someone is hurt in a household accident every 48 seconds. Is that a lot?
We need some numbers. The population of NZ is about 4.5 million, and there are about 30 million seconds in a year(*).
Since I’m doing this while trying to avoid traffic in the jaywalking capital of New Zealand, let’s round off the accident rate to one every 50 seconds. That gives 600,000 accidents per year. If we had a population of six million, this would be one accident every ten years, but we only have 4.5 million, so it’s more like one accident per person per seven years.
Somehow, it sounds less impressive that way.
* For real nerds, an even more accurate approximation is π times 10 million seconds.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »
ACC has some other stats about injuries and accidents here http://www.acc.co.nz/about-acc/media-centre/ABA00053.
13 years ago
“…someone is hurt in a household accident every 48 seconds.”
That poor person – such bad luck! It’s a wonder they’re still alive!
13 years ago