Shocking Stats

[Griffin NoName]

I heard on the TV tonight that "Every ten days in England and Wales one child is killed at the hands of their parent." - I found this so hard to believe that I looked up the statistic and found it along with some other ones http://www.nspcc.org.uk/inform/research/statistics/child_homicide_statistics_wda48747.html

Probably naive, and I know all the stuff about social services bla bla, but I just don't understand how this happens. Not with such frequency.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Lotsa people in the world-- even the UK.

With that?  Lookin' at your basic bell-curve, we see that lots and lots more folk out in the wee ends of either side of that bell-- and some folk out on the very-very tips, where previously, we saw one of those a century or less.

Now we see those whackos every few years, and obviously, we see not-quite-so-extreme (but just as bad from the child's perspective) whacos every 10 days ...!

And since we have way-way more transparency?  With regards to news, that is-- we see (and hear) about these extreme cases, where in our grandda's day, such things made local gossip chains--but not the actual news.

It's a function of having... what?  Eight billion and counting? 

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Not to minimize the tragedy but 23 death babies on a population of ~55 million or .0000004% of the population sounds like a relatively decent statistic. About .000001% for children under 16. For reference 1900 people died last year in traffic accidents in the UK and ~760 murders per year (or 1.23 per 100.000 in the UK).

For other point of reference, in 2008 1,494 children under 18 were murdered in the US or five times the number in the UK accounting for population differences.

(I don't even want to look for the same statistics in Colombia  )

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Interesting times.

Not that long ago, it would've been quite difficult to come by the statistics you posted above-- if not downright impossible.

Having these statistics around?  I think is a good thing-- how else may we work towards fixing our world, unless we are aware of what ills it?

[Griffin NoName]

Yes, I know when you break it down, it's a small proportion. But it still shocks me.

[Swatopluk]

It is an old joke that Daimler and Benz would never have gotten a licence for their invention, if they had told that it had the side effect of killing the population of a decently sized city every year. Daimler famously said that he did not believe that there would ever be more than 1 million cars in the world. German factories produce more than that each year these days.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I wonder if there were statistics of coaches and horse riding accidents and normalize with ownership and population to determine if cars are actually that much dangerous.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I wonder if there were statistics of coaches and horse riding accidents and normalize with ownership and population to determine if cars are actually that much dangerous.

Who can say?

There are several factors at work: 

1) a lot fewer people, when we were still using horses
2) no horse could sustain the high speeds we do as a matter of routine--even in city traffic, 30-40mph is 2 times what a horse or horses could do
3) horses will not naturally run into stuff, if they are able to avoid doing so.  In many ways, horses are smarter than today's drivers are.  By a large margin....!  

A car?  Is literally as dumb as a rock-- it will cheerfully and without complaint, plow into pretty much anything you point it at, and jam on the gas-pedal--including flying off of a cliff. 

[Swatopluk]

In the early days cars were probably less dangerous (slow and loud). I guess they reached maximum letality some time after WW2. Then began the general infringement on the liberty of automobilists with things like seat belts, airbags, (new) speed limits, unleaded petrol etc. taking all the fun out of driving. Not to forget that the damned Nazis came up with cars for the masses (as if the Tin Lizzy had not been bad enough). In the old days the rich and noble had the roads to themselves and nobody worth mentioning complained about some run over peasants.

In reply to Bob who posted while I was still preparing this post: One key difference is also that in the horse and carriage days the drivers/riders had similar risks in accidents as the people they hit. Horses can bolt easily even with a competent ride/driver. In a car-vs.-walker accident the risk for the car driver is usually minimal.

But I guess the penny-farthing must have been about the most dangerous way of driving invented for normal use.

As far as speed goes, in Germany the first official speed limits applied not to cars but horses (at a time when the first cars already had hit the road).

[Bluenose]

Actually, in terms of lethality overall, I believe that cars resulted in a significant reduction overall, primarily due to the reduction in horse excrement.  Of the many issues, one of the worst was typhoid spead by flies which were attracted in enormous numbers to the horse manure, whether it was left on the side of the road ar gathered together in enormous piles in manure yards for "rotting".  So, it may be that more people are killed per head of population by collissions involving cars than was previously the case with horses and carts (although fatalities there were hardly unknown) once you consider the overall fatality rate that can be accrued to each mode of transport, cars are really a lot safer.

[Swatopluk]

Once we go into indirectly caused death, the stuff gets complicated (in a 'for the loss of a nail' way). Cars so fundamentally changed our way of life that even just the secondary effects would be difficult to calculate. How many died due to air pollution or will die due to climate change? It's not all the big power plants, esp. on the local level.

[Griffin NoName]

Then began the general infringement on the liberty of automobilists with things like seat belts, airbags, (new) speed limits, unleaded petrol etc. taking all the fun out of driving.

Some few years ago I changed from leaded to unleaded petrol. It didn't change my liberty or take the fun out of driving. Except in terms of being a few ££££s worse off.

I like Blue's typhoid link. It's always good to hear how bad things were in the old days, when one is fretting about how bad things are now.

[Swatopluk]

The Spanish flu killed far more people than the Black Death (it reached all the world not just Eurasia and had far more potential victims).
The Franco-German war of 1871 had more French die of smallpox than of bullets and related ways of death. The German troops were almost completely inoculated and only a few units that were not were decimated. The Vietnam war annulled almost all successes against the Malaria (because the GIs acted as if it was their goal to breed resistance against all known anti-malarial drugs). Bush's glorious Iraq and Afghanistan adventures brought several diseases back that were on their way to be only found in old textbooks but not in real life). Oh yes, and the CIA under Obama may be responsible for the return of polio to Central Asia because they gathered intelligence disguised as part of the polio eradication campaign (which has now totally discredited the latter).

The good old days may actually have been bad but we do a lot to match them by applied stupidity.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

That sounds like a pre-grad course: Applied Stupidity Studies.

[Swatopluk]

That sounds like a pre-grad course: Applied Stupidity Studies.

ASS - no presricption needed 
(that's Aspirin for those that do not want to pay extra for the name BAYER)