accident risk

DUI/DWI for a New Generation

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I am impressed with the ability of some people to injure themselves in creative ways.

Analyzing data from the 2016-2021 National Inpatient Sample, UCLA researchers found that 25% of 7350 patients hospitalized for scooter-related injuries were using substances such as alcohol, opioids, marijuana and cocaine when injured. Published in The American Surgeon, the study also notes that overall scooter-related hospitalizations during the 5-year period jumped more than eight-fold, from 330 to 2705. In addition, the risk of traumatic brain injuries among the substance use group was almost double that of the non-impaired patients. University of California – Los Angeles Health Sciences. “Nearly one-quarter of e-Scooter injuries involved substance impaired riders.” https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/04/250429195329.htm (accessed May 3, 2025).

AND don’t forget about these things can randomly explode.

“In all of these fires, these lithium-ion fires, it is not a slow burn there’s not a small amount of fire, it literally explodes,” FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh – https://www.statista.com/chart/29472/fires-caused-by-lithium-ion-batteries/

Is Your Car Insurance More Expensive?

/ SupremeCmdr / 1 Comment

For me, yes.

I found the above on my insurance company’s policy portal. I totally get the first two items but the third reason caught me off guard. I really shouldn’t be surprised since a lot of people forgot how to drive coming out of the Pandemic. Recently over a two day span I encountered three idiots in less than 45 minutes of drive time.

  • In the parking lot of the grocery store a guy pulls out of his spot and starts driving directly towards me. We were both going slow so the head on wouldn’t have been too catastrophic. I braked and stopped. He kept driving straight at me. Was he having a medical issue, a seizure perhaps? This driver then slowly does a very wide U-turn, crosses the parking spaces and starts to head off. SMH.
  • On the way home (SAME DAY) a different idiot decides to make a left turn from the far right lane and cuts me off. SMH x2. On this day I was averaging one idiot every 15 minutes.
  • Last but not least another idiot darted out of a cross street, cuts me off and starts speeding away.

So if you want to know why your car insurance premiums are higher it’s because of the idiots. Pretty soon, premiums will go up again because of the robots.

A woman was found trapped under a driverless car. It’s not what it looks like, the car company said — https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/03/tech/driverless-car-pedestrian-injury/index.html

Thank you all for letting me vent.

I’m not leaving the house today.

The Dark Side of Pickleball

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It’s a new national obsession, the fastest-growing sport in the U.S. And by the end of 2023, it’s expected to yield roughly 67,000 emergency department visits, 366,000 outpatient visits, 8,800 outpatient surgeries, 4,700 hospitalizations, and 20,000 post-acute injury episodes. All told, UBS Group AG financial analysts have forecast that the direct medical costs of pickleball will top $377 million this year alone, mostly due to wrist, lower leg, head, or lower trunk injuries…

Felice de Jong, PhD, a 67-year-old scientist who lives in Nellysford, VA, explained that when she first heard the name “pickleball,” she thought it would be a “piece of cake, like playing tiddlywinks.” Because she had spent a lifetime being active, she dove right in after only a few lessons, badly twisted her ankle, developed tennis elbow, and was forced to lay off the paddle for a few weeks before returning to the court. 

As Injuries from Pickleball Surge, Here’s How to Play Safely — https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/news/20230724/heres-how-to-play-pickleball-safely?src=RSS_PUBLIC

I have a 12 court facility located at the public golf course 2 miles from the house.

I’m tempted. Just need to make sure my health insurance premiums are paid and up to date.

Drive By Truckers

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Up to one-third of crashes of large trucks are attributable to sleepiness, and large truck crashes result in more than 4,000 deaths annually. For each occupant of a truck who is killed, 6 to 7 occupants of other vehicles are killed.

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a sleep-related breathing disorder that is characterized by repetitive episodes of complete or partial upper airway obstruction during sleep.1 OSA is common among adults,2,3 and it is particularly common in commercial operators.4–8 Untreated OSA leads to increased morbidity and mortality, as well as high costs related to crashes, health care use, absenteeism, and lost productivity.9–11 A systematic review and meta-analysis commissioned by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) shows that drivers with OSA have a crash risk that is between 21% and 489% higher than comparable drivers without OSA.12 A 2013 meta-analysis of more than 25,000 individuals who were enrolled in 12 studies shows that OSA was associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular disease (relative risk: 1.79), fatal and nonfatal stroke (relative risk: 2.15), and death from all causes (relative risk: 1.92).13

Obstructive sleep apnea screening, diagnosis, and treatment in the transportation industry – https://jcsm.aasm.org/doi/10.5664/jcsm.9672

An Algorithm Put This Article in My News Feed

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Photo by Egor Kamelev on Pexels.com

In a survival situation, you probably wouldn’t make it on bugs alone, despite what some sites would have you believe. But insects could certainly be an important part of what keeps you alive. Bugs are highly nutritious, with lots of proteins and vitamins and modest amounts of fat. Here are the things you should know.

9 Bugs to Eat in a Survival Situation (And 4 You Want to Avoid) — https://www.fieldandstream.com/story/survival/insects-to-eat-in-survival-situation/

Faithful followers know I have two blogs, this one and http://garyskitchen.net. The latter is more or less devoted to food. I debated whether to post this article link here or there. I decided here because my professional life is devoted to understanding what kills people. Obviously getting lost while hiking and running out of food can lead to an early expiration date.

The article was fun to read. You’ll enjoy it too unless you’re a conspiracy theorist.

Insect consumption has been highlighted by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization as an important tool in addressing food insecurity for a growing global population. And since agriculture is the second-largest greenhouse gas emitter after the energy sector, insect eating presents a compelling climate solution, too – crickets, for example, can provide the same amount of protein as cows for less than 0.1% of the emissions.

Meaty, cheesy, coconutty: a chef’s quest to prove insects taste delicious — https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/09/insects-food-menu?amp;amp;amp

Hmm…maybe I should have posted this on https://garyskitchen.net

Was SARS-COV-2 the Reason Why People Forgot How to Drive?

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The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released its 2020 annual traffic crash data, showing that 38,824 lives were lost in traffic crashes nationwide. That number marks the highest number of fatalities since 2007. 

https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/nhtsa-releases-2020-traffic-crash-data

In Pandemic Year One we had the highest number of traffic fatalities since 2007.

Correlation is not causation. The post title is a click bait joke.

Outdoor experts agree, risk management is key

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So, it might not come as a shock that after this past year Colorado Parks and Wildlife reported a 30 percent increase in visitations through Nov. 2020, as noted by the Denver Post; a staggering number considering that just one year prior, the Outdoor Foundation reported that nearly half of the U.S. population did not participate in outdoor recreation.The Roaring Fork Valley (RFV) is no outlier to this outdoor participation trend, and with more travel and a dangerous snowpack this season, the risks are intensified. Fortunately, outdoor leaders in the RFV have noticed that recreationists are taking risk management – the ability to independently assess the risks of an activity – seriously.

Outdoor experts agree, risk management is key — https://www.soprissun.com/2021/01/07/outdoor-experts-agree-risk-management-is-key/
Architect on the mountain actively engaging in avalanche training.
Aliens with headlamps “skinning” up a mountain somewhere near Aspen CO
Blogger staying near sea level.

E-bikes Show Distinct Pattern of Severe Injuries

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E-bikes Show Distinct Pattern of Severe Injuries

Of more than 245 million injuries reported in the study period, 130,797 involved powered-scooter accidents, accounting for 5.3 per 10,000 U.S. emergency department injuries. There were 3,075 e-bike injuries, or 0.13 per 10,000. In addition, about 9.4 million pedal bicycle injuries accounted for 385.4 per 10,000 of all emergency department injuries.

I live a short distance from one of the three major universities in Oklahoma.  I’ve learned to drive defensively especially when classes are over and the streets are teeming with students.  The other day in a residential 25 MPH area adjacent to campus the car in front of me suddenly hit her brakes.

Student on an e-bike ran a stop sign.  She was not wearing a helmet nor did she look in either direction prior to placing herself directly in the path of a moving car.

Seriously?