Common Risks

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Common Risks and the Chance that They Will Cause My Untimely Demise People have strange perceptions about risk. Many of us don't realize that we could die from what we have done safely for years. Of course, the chance of this for any one person is low, but there are enough people in the world that it is almost guaranteed that someone somewhere will be killed by what everyone thought was harmless. I have researched how risk is calculated and the risk of my death from ten seemingly safe events. I have ranked these actions based on my personal risk from them. Experts calculate and report risk several different ways, but all start with the number of people who died at some past time of a certain cause, and compare this number either to the entire…show more content…
For this reason, risks of types of transportation are often compared using ratios between deaths and miles traveled. The ten risks, from least to most likely to kill me in the next 5 years, are: 1) American Football: (From Oxford University, Bandolier, “risk of dying and sporting activities”): 1 in 182,184 participants. To reduce your risk, wear proper protective clothing. I have never played football, but I might start in the next four years because it is popular at Fairmont Prep. 2) Swimming: 3533 people drowned in US in 2005 (From CDC “Unintentional drowning: Get the Facts”). The Census Vintage 2005 National tables indicate a population of 296,410,404 people in the country. This means the chance was about 1 in 88401 that a random member of the population would drown by the end of 2005. How to prevent death: Learn to swim, don’t swim drunk, don’t act without asking “is this a good idea”? The last time I went swimming was this…show more content…
To decrease your risk: when it is very hot out, try to stay inside in air conditioning. If you do go out, wear protective clothing (hat) and drink water. Hot days earlier this year could have caused heat sickness for some people. 4) Cycling: (from BBC News, “How safe is cycling”): For cycling in Britain there is 1 death per 29 million miles traveled, or about 3.4 deaths per 100 million miles. There is no reason to think it would be much different in America. To decrease your risk: wear a helmet, have lights/reflectors at night, avoid busy roads when possible. The last time I went cycling was about 2 weeks ago. 5) Trains: (from US Department of Transportation, Bureau of transportation statistics, railroad passenger safety data (Table 2-42)): quite variable, frequently about 7 deaths per 100 million miles. There is no obvious way to decrease risk other than taking another form of transportation. The last time I travelled by train was a few years ago, but I can imagine starting to do it
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