Accidents kill 830,000 children annually

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Around the globe, accidents kill 830,000 children annually - equivalent to all the children in Chicago, according to a report issued by the World Health Organization and UNICEF.

The report, the first to collect all known data on child injuries worldwide, makes broad estimates because many poor countries gather few health statistics, and many children are hurt or killed without ever seeing a doctor.

Though 95 percent of all injuries to children occur in poor and middle-income countries, injuries account for 40 percent of all child deaths in rich ones.

By teen years, road injuries become major killers in poor countries as in rich ones.  In the 15 to 19 age group, for example, the leading cause of death is traffic accidents.

In the United States, accidents kill 12,175 children a year - more than all diseases combined, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control.  Car crashes were the leading cause in the U.S., except for children age 4 or less.

We’ve come a long way

Yesterday I wrote about Electronic Stability Control and how Consumer Reports calls it the greatest safety advance since seat belts.

Last night I read a Wall Street Journal article entitled “Unsafe at Any Speed, With Any Driver, On Any Kind of Road.”  It is a fascinating look back at how lax safety standards used to be.  Every yea, about 42,000 people die in automobile-related accidents in the U.S.  In 1930, when there was only about a tenth of the cars on the road as there are now, more than 31,000 people in the U.S. were killed by cars.  “The automobile is here to slay,” said one newspaper.

Think about this, if 30,000 people a year have died since 1930, how many have died in total since the almost 80 years that have elapsed : 30,000 * 80 = 2.4 million!

New signs to memorialize DWI wreck victims

A new state program will allow friends and relatives of people killed in drunken driving wrecks in Texas to buy memorial signs that will be placed near the crash site for a year.

The $300 signs will be 42 inches high and 48 inches wide, with a blue background and white lettering and have the victim’s name, the wreck date, and the phrases “Please Don’t Drink and Drive” and “In Memory of” on them.  The $300 covers the cost of making the sign and putting it up which will be placed as close as possible to the crash site.

According to the Texas Department of Transportation, Texas had more than 1,670 fatalities in 2006 that involved drivers who were under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

The program applies only to people killed by impaired drivers.  Impaired drivers who were killed in a crash will not be eligible.  Also, to be eligible, the victims must have been killed on a state-maintained road.