Being accident prone no accident
May 11th 2007

Researchers in Holland have revealed that people who have lots of accidents could be more than just plain unlucky.

Psychiatrist Ellen Visser and her colleagues at the University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands, whose findings are published in Accident Analysis and Prevention and reported by the New Scientist, have looked at the results of 79 studies recording the mishaps of 147,000 people drawn from the populations of 15 countries.

The results show that a staggering one in 29 people have a 50 per cent higher chance of having an accident than the rest of the population.

While Visser points out that the study doesn't reveal who in particular is at risk, she says it does show that a band of woeful people exist.

Other contributing factors to higher accident levels identified were; youth, inexperience, job dissatisfaction, sleeping disorders, smoking and the absence of good safety training.

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