Morris tribune., 1898-01-05
CHANCES OF. REINe KILLEn.
Some Statistics on the Possibilities OF Fig
uring In Accidents.

uring In Accidents
What thing it is to know when
you are going to be killed or injured
in railway accident, or run over
by an omnibus, or knocked down
by a scorcher, or to be hit on the
head with brick, or to meet with
any other disagreeable experiences
Any ole can predict these things by
merely consulting the government
reports and making his own deduc-
tons.
The way to tell how and when you
are going to be injured in railway
accident is to study the law of aver
ages-a wonderfully true prophet,
with mathematical principles much
too advanced to be set down in de-
tail here.
Taking the average number of
people killed in train accidents in
Great Britain every year as 20 out
of 10000, 900 individual people who
travel by train, the law says you
must be killed after you have trav-
eled 1900, 900 miles, which may be
accomplished in from % to 80 years,
provided you travel in more than
three trains day.
But if you wish to be present at
an accident without being killed,
you would need to travel only 645, :
900 miles, making at least two jour
neys day. Thus, an engine driver
or guard is bound to meet with an
accident of some kind after he has
travelled (as he often has) from, say,
London to Liverpool or Manchester
and back, or to Exeter or Swansea
and back, daily excepting Sundays
for five years Years ago the per-
centage of accidents was much
greater, and busy commercial trav-
eler considered himself very lucky
if he escaped being present at an &C
cident after three or four years
journeying.
Take cycling accidents. The stat
istician of general accidents will
tell you that out Of hundred cy
olists you may count in the streets
on a Saturday afternoon seven of
them will collide with passing OBJ
ieots, three will meet with other
more serious accidents, and one will
be very seriously hurt. If you were
to stop again to count $3.50 cyclists,
by the time the last man had passed
you one of the number would have
been killed. In whatever part of
the country you may be this rule
as to the percentage of accidents
will apply.
AS with cycling, so with football.
Give the statistician the number of
matches fixed and the number of
players and one or two other details,
and he will tell you, within half
a dozen cases, how many mishaps
will happen. Or he will tell you
that, working on the average that
~ persons are run over and killed
in the streets of London every "a
hours, your turn must come in IS
years, provided you live in London
all that time and spend at least an
hour walking about the streets daily.
When any great building is about
to be erected, the authorities are
fully prepared for the number of
lives that will be lost in it's con-
struction. In the building of the
Forth bridge it was predicted that
SO men would lose their lives during
the six years it would take to build
The actual number was Sc, but it
was couple of months more than
was anticipated before the bridge
was finished, so that the calculation
was practically correct.
1t is part of the duty of the chief
accountant in an insurance Office to
calculate as near as he can the num-
Der of claims through death that
will be made upon him during the
year, and, provided nothing extra
ordinary happens, like an epidemic,
he will state almost to a penny the |
amount of money that will have to
be paid in claims.
If you are an ocean traveller, it |
would be better for you to pick out |
a certain ship and stick to it, for the |
chances of being shipwreoked in
vessel to which you have chung all
your seafaring life are extremely |
small, but if you select different |
boat for every voyage your chances
are greatly increased. Suppose you
were to sail around the British isles
fivetimes year and each time by |
different boat. The law of aver
ages demands that you shall be ship
wrecked within II years. This cal
culation is based on the number of
shipwrecks which happened round
our coasts last year London An
swers.
Compensation.
Il. , \ r