Archive for the ‘accidents’ Tag
First of all, I’d like to wish all of you out there a Happy New Year. I’m also going to pass along some information concerning deaths that occurred on New Year’s past due to excessive alcohol consumption and the misuse of fireworks and guns. This information was collected from numerous sources in the USA and Europe. Enjoy the holiday but don’t become famous as another stupid-death statistic.
During the study period (2020), we found that over 1,000 people were killed in fatal collisions across the United States on New Year’s Eve or Day. In fact, there were:
- 916 total fatal crashes
- 1,004 fatalities
- 341 fatal crashes involving drunk drivers
- 377 people killed in drunk driving crash
In terms of total crashes, Texas (188), Florida (167) and California (154) had by far the highest number. However, these three states are also the states with the highest population. When looking at fatal crashes per 100,000 licensed drivers, the safest and most dangerous states were much different.
The five states with the highest crash rates (most dangerous states) were:
- Mississippi
- Oklahoma
- South Carolina
- Wyoming
- Texas
Without a doubt, the hours between 1 am and 3 am are the most dangerous during the New Year’s holiday. These hours were numbers 1 and 2 for total fatal crashes involving a drunk driver. Interestingly, fatal crashes drop significantly during the midnight to 1 am, as people everywhere likely stay where they are to enjoy watching the ball drop.
The National Safety Council (NSC) estimates that 384 people may die on U.S. roads this New Year’s Day holiday period. Holidays traditionally are a time of travel for families across the United States and many choose car travel, which has the highest fatality rate of any major form of transportation based on fatalities per passenger mile.
If celebrating and dying on New Year’s Eve in the USA isn’t scary enough, read the following. Europeans are just as crazy as we are. They apparently prefer killing themselves with fireworks rather than vehicular homicides. New Year’s Eve data from 2020.
- In Germany, at least one death was reported early on Friday of a 24-year-old man in the eastern town of Rietz-Neuendorf, who died when homemade fireworks detonated shortly after midnight.
- Another case of improvised firework’s explosion left one man’s life in danger and two others injured near the western German city of Osnabrück. They were working with explosives, trying to create a pyrotechnic, when there was an explosion shortly after midnight.
- After they were barred from setting off fireworks in public spaces, some Berliners instead tried to launch them from their homes on New Year’s Eve, leading to dozens of fires across the German capital. Between midnight and just six minutes later, the Berlin fire service said it was called to 18 fires, with more following deeper into the night. No one reported any immediate serious injuries.
And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention those fun-loving Arabs in Iraq. What’s New Years without mowing down a few of your fellow citizens with meaningless gunfire.
- At least one civilian was killed and 25 injured in celebratory gunfire and fireworks marking the New Year in different parts of Iraq, a health official said on Friday. Fireworks were set off in several parts of the country despite a government ban on mass gatherings to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
PLEASE HAVE A HAPPY AND SAFE NEW YEARS CELEBRATION
***Stay Out of Iraq***
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Once upon a time in a galaxy far far away I was required to work eight hours a day, 40 hours a week, with insurance companies. Truthfully it wasn’t much fun and after talking to literally hundreds of insurance company employees, they agreed. I was forced to read hundreds of accident reports and then pass them on to the insurance carriers. Some information contained in those reports was incredible to say the least. The following list of quotations is taken from actual submitted insurance claims concerning automobile accidents. You can read them, take your time, and try to figure out exactly what they mean. Here we go . . .
- “I told the police that I was not injured, but on removing my hat I found that I had a fractured skull.”
- “Coming home I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don’t have. The other car collided with mine without giving me warning of its intention.”
- “I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law and headed over the embankment.”
- “I thought my window was down, but I found it was up when I put my head through it.”
- “The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve several times before I hit him.”
- “I collided with a stationary truck coming the other way.”
- “In an attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole.”
- “As I approached the intersection a sign appeared in a place where no stop sign had ever appeared before. I was unable to stop in time to avoid the accident.”
- “The pedestrian had no idea which direction to run. So I ran over him.”
- “I saw a slow moving, sad faced old gentleman as he bounced off the roof of my car.”
- “The telephone pole was approaching. I was attempting to swerve out of the way when I struck the front end.”
- “I was thrown from my car as it left the road. I was later found in a ditch by some stray cows.”
- “An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my car, and vanished.”
- “The accident was caused by me waving to the man I hit last week.”
- “I had been shopping for a plant all day and was on my way home. As I reached an intersection a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision, and I did not see the other car.”
I give thanks everyday that I know longer have to deal with this nonsense. The only thing worse than dealing with insurance companies is dealing with their customers.
BEWARE! THEIR EVERYWHERE
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After admitting in my last post that I had an addictive personality got me to thinking. I thought I knew myself pretty well when I was able to admit that I was also claustrophobic. One phobia isn’t all that bad or so I thought. I decided to dig into the Everyuselessthing archives to learn more about phobias. I’m not sure that was such a great idea. I discovered a list of phobias that aren’t commonly known and I think I may suffer from a few more than previously thought. Here are a few examples:
Arachibutyrophobia – fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth.
Automatonophobia – fear of ventriloquists’ dummies.
Coulrophobia – fear of clowns.
Geniophobia – fear of chins.
Phobophobia – fear of fear.
Pteronophobia – fear of being tickled by feathers.
Rupophobia – fear of dirt.
I’ll only admit to having two additional phobias from that list and there isn’t a chance in hell I’ll tell you what they are. As I finished denigrating myself for all of my stupid phobias I received an email from a friend in KC. He’s a senior + senior citizen who’s been an internet rat since it’s inception. It was a ‘Hi, How are you?’ message ending with AMBW. I answered him quickly because I had no freaking clue what that meant. I know LOL, WTF, and a few others but never really felt the need to learn more. His AMBW means All My Best Wishes. There seem to be so many of these in use I decided to find a few more. These were a small sampling of texting acronyms I’m sure I’ll use only sporadically.
A3 – Anytime, Anywhere, Anyplace.
AFAIR – As Far As I an Remember.
ASAFP – As Soon As F**king Possible.
OMFG – Oh My F**king God.
AAI – Allah Already Informed
BITCH – Babe In Total Control of Herself
CFI – Complete F**king Idiot
CRST – Can’t Remember Sh*t
If any of you ever decide to send me a text or email containing these sort of acronyms please include detailed explanations as well. Life’s way too short for me to waste my time trying to figure them out.
One last bit of amusement to entertainment you. Years ago I was a police officer for the state of Pennsylvania. Early in my career I was in the patrol unit and spent a great deal of time investigating accidents, both trivial and serious. I thought I’d heard all the stupid reasons people offer up to explain their accidents but these samples taken from actual insurance reports were new even to me.
“I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced over at my mother-in-law and headed over the embankment.”
“In an attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole.”
“A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.”
“The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve several times before I hit him.”
“An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my car, and vanished.”
“The indirect cause of the accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth.”
“As I approached the intersection a sign appeared in a place where no stop sign had ever appeared before. I was unable to stop in time to avoid the accident.”
“I thought my window was down, but I found out it was up when I put my head through it.”
You just can’t make this stuff up. Most of these were way better than the stories I was told but just as funny. I think I’ve had enough of this for today. I have errands to run, pictures to take, coffee to drink, and people to watch.
ENJOY THIS DAY, I KNOW I WILL.
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I found out the hard way that having a broken leg as we come into the holiday season is a mixed blessing. I’m three and a half weeks into this injury with at least three more weeks before I can start walking on it again on a limited basis. I’m quickly finding out that the boredom and being housebound is worse than the actual injury itself.
I found myself becoming a little hard to live with since I’ve apparently developed a rather bad temper. I just can’t seem to adjust to this slower lifestyle and my better-half is paying the price for it. With lots of Christmas season activities on the horizon she’ll be overloaded with decorating, baking, and house cleaning. I plan on helping where I can but truthfully I won’t be much help.
I put myself on her sh** list a few days ago. She knew how much I was itching to get out of the house so she took my car keys to work with her to keep me from doing something crazy. Being the persistent pain-in-the-ass that I am I found my extra set of keys hidden in a secret location. I hobbled to the garage, jumped in the car and drove a few miles to get a fresh cup of coffee and a sandwich. It wasn’t easy fitting my big ass, crutches, and the huge air cast into the front seat but I did it anyway. I made the trip without incident and returned home feeling pretty proud of myself. That lasted until my better-half got home from work then the you-know-what hit the fan. I’m now officially grounded. That hasn’t happened to me for a very long time and I don’t like it any better now than I did then. I pushed my luck with my little trip but now I’m paying the price for my stupidity.
I returned to the orthopedist for my three week exam and received nothing but good news. The bone is knitting itself nicely and no surgery will be required. I’m now permitted to slowly increase the amount of weight on it over the next three weeks. At that point I’ll be scheduled for some limited physical therapy and hopefully I’ll be back on my feet and ready to party by New Years.
I wouldn’t wish this kind of injury on my worst enemy. It’s frustrating and humbling to find yourself helpless. Last night as I was watching TV I heard my better-half upstairs doing something. A few minutes later she started down the steps when I heard a loud crash. She screamed my name and I hopped my way over to the stairs. She had fallen much like I had and fortunately only bruised her thigh, leg, and hand. She broke no bones but she’ll be sore as hell for a few days. We should be made the official poster children for CLUMSY. I may be forced to install a damn elevator so the two of us don’t cripple ourselves permanently.
Happy Effing Holidays! 2013, a year to remember and then immediately forget.
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Well I was planning on spending some time writing about a few useless things today but it appears that won’t be happening. I was out of bed and on my second cup of coffee and feeling pretty good. That ended just a few minutes ago without much warning. I was going downstairs to take out some trash and to turn on the computer. Our main staircase is about thirty steps straight down to the ground floor and I just made that trip in just under two seconds.
Now I’m sitting here waiting for my ride to the hospital because I think I may have broken my leg or my ankle or just injured them badly. The pain is bad but not critical but I can’t walk on it at all. So I crawled to the computer and I’m sitting here writing this just to keep my mind occupied for a while.
I should have known that something bad was going to happen after the weird dreams I experienced just before waking this morning. I dreamt about meeting up with Bill Clinton, having a few drinks at his club, and then being abandoned when he and his driver unexpectedly left me standing along the road.
I walked a few blocks and managed to flag down a large car which strangely enough had a cargo of inmates from a local jail. The driver was kind enough to relay a message via radio to Slick Willie. He was given our location and told where to met us so he could pick me up. As his limo drove up he was standing up in the open sun roof waving at the many females walking along the side walk. He waved to me once, winked cutely, and then drove right on by and off into the sunset. All in all it was typical of what I would have expected from that SOB. Unfortunately Monica had been nowhere in sight during our encounter and fortunately for me Hillary was missing as well.
That’s the kind of dream (nightmare) I never have. Dreaming of liberals should have immediately alerted me to the real possibility of problems today but I wasn’t paying close enough attention. So here I sit in anticipation of a not-so-great day in an emergency room, being poked and prodded, and returning home unable to walk without crutches for the foreseeable future.
Just freaking wonderful Bill. I thought the days of you making me miserable were over but you’re that proverbial gift that keeps on giving. Shoot me now.
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