I noticed today that bottled water has a serving suggestion on it's label. This started me thinking, and I've found that everything these days appears to have some kind of guidance on the label.
This made me think some more, and during this thinking I managed to find the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accident's statistics PDF from 2000. After reading this, it would appear that the world is a much more dangerous place than I give it credit for.
To save you ploughing through the 55 pages of the report, I'd like to bring some of the highlights to your attention. Now before I start, I think that it's important to note that these statistics deal with injuries that resulted in a trip to the hospital. So, let's get started. According to RSPOA, 2,431 people were injured by a couch. This means that your couch is more dangerous than a kitchen knife (1,555)!
But it doesn't stop there, folks. The statistics page is an astounding source of information. 173 people needed a trip to the local A&E thanks to the terrible dangers of pillows. 506 people fell victim to the predations of their hoover. 155 people found that leaflets held unimagined dangers.
Despite all the warnings in both the press and tv about fireworks, 55 souls needed a trip to hospital for not paying attention (I tend to think that they deserve it). In contrast, double that number (110) of children were injured by "Soft Toys, Dolls, Action man". Where's the fucking warning for that then?
772 people were injured by a football (not playing football mind you, by a football). This is an order of magnitude more than the number of people injured by skateboards (149). 208 people were hospitalised due to the dangers of bouncy castles.
I could go on about this all night, as this sheet is full of amazing statistics, but I'm going to sign off now and leave you with this one titbit to think on. In the year 2000, at the dawn of the 21st century; 231 people suffered an injury sufficient to warrant a trip to hospital from their trousers.
No, I have no fucking idea how that happens either.
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