| CAUSE | DAYS LOST (on average) per lifetime |
| being an unmarried male |
3500 |
| being a smoker (male) |
2250 |
| heart disease (average) |
2100 |
| being an unmarried female |
1600 |
| being 30% overweight |
1300 |
| being a coal miner |
1100 |
| cancer |
900 |
| being 20% overweight |
900 |
| consuming an additional 100 Cal/day |
210 |
| average vehicle accidents |
207 |
| from pneumonia or flu |
141 |
| alcohol (US av) |
130 |
| accident in home |
95 |
| suicide |
95 |
| diabetes |
95 |
| homocide |
90 |
| legal drug misuse |
90 |
| having an accident (avg risk job) |
74 |
| drowning |
41 |
| job with radiation exposure |
40 |
| falls |
39 |
| having an accident (safe job) |
30 |
| burns |
27 |
| energy generation |
24 |
| illicit drug use |
18 |
| poison |
17 |
| firearm accident |
13 |
| natural radiation |
11 |
| medical x-rays |
7 |
| coffee (contains carcinogens) |
6 |
| oral contraception |
5 |
| bicycle accident |
5 |
| catastrophes (all) |
4 |
| diet drinks (carcinogens) |
2 |
| nuclear reactor accident (antinuclear group) |
2 |
| nuclear react accident (pronuclear estimate) |
0.02 |
| home smoke alarm |
–10 |
| pap test |
–4 |
| require airbags on all cars |
–50 |
| safety improvements 1966-1976 |
–110 |
| mobile coronary care units |
–125 |
Increase your deathrate by one part in a million (1 PPM):
(from Bernard Cohen, a retired physics professor from Carnegie Mellon University)
Fatalities per million hours:
Fatalities
Activity per million hrs
-------- ---------------
Skydiving 128.71
General Aviation 15.58
On-road Motorcycling 8.80
Scuba Diving 1.98
Living (all causes of death) 1.53
Swimming 1.07
Snowmobiling .88
Passenger cars .47
Water skiing .28
Bicycling .26
Flying (scheduled domestic airlines) .15
Hunting .08
Cosmic Radiation from transcontinental flights .035
Home Living (active) .027
Traveling in a School Bus .022
Passenger Car Post-collision fire .017
Home Living, active & passive (sleeping) .014
Residential Fire .003
Compiled by Failure Analysis Associates, Inc. (Design News, 10-4-93)