Grandma got run over by a reindeer
This year I’ve seen two versions of the “beware of holiday accidents” story, on 3News and in Stuff.
3News had dramatized re-enactments of accidents, and quoted the scary-sounding numbers
In the week over Christmas last year, ACC received over 36,000 claims, costing around $24 million. Almost 10 percent of those claims were on Christmas Day.
If you watch the video, you see this was 36,500 claims for the 9-day ‘week’ Dec 25 to Jan 2. The number you need to remember for ACC stories is 4500 claims/day on average. So, in other words, Christmas ‘week’ was below average for the year, and Christmas Day was slightly below average for that week.
Stuff gets a lot of credit for actually coming out and saying this, quoting the ACC’s Stephanie Melville
“Christmas is an exciting time but it can also be tiring, stressful and frantic,” she said.
“Add alcohol to the mix and you have an injury cocktail in the making.”
She urged people to slow down, plan ahead and think about their actions and surroundings.
“While there isn’t an increase in the number of accidents at this time of year, the consequences can mean your holiday fun is curtained.”
That’s a sensible, evidence-based message. Congratulations.
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 »