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| Home > News > Vol. XLV, No. 4, October 2001 > Did you know? | |||||||||
Did you know?Statistics Canada reported that over half (51 percent) of the women murdered in 1999 were killed by a person with whom they had intimate relations. Of those, 38 were murdered by a current male spouse (married or common-law) and 20 by a separated or divorced male spouse. Another two women were killed by their same-sex spouses. More than three-quarters (77 per cent) of those suffering criminal harassment were women. A new type of weapon is being seized in Europe. The phone gun looks like a normal mobile phone, but is much heavier. Inside the dummy phone is a .22 calibre firearm which can fire four rounds in quick succession by pressing buttons on the key pad. Ontario's road safety record for 1999 was the best in Canada and second only to Massachusetts in all of North America. There were 868 road fatalities, which represents a rate of 1.10 per 10,000 drivers. Drinking and driving was a factor in almost one-quarter of these deaths. The worst year on record was 1972, when 1,934 people ( 5.24 per 10,000 drivers) were killed on Ontario roads. A 53-year-old Ontario woman was awarded almost $6 million after a court ruled the province should have cleared ice from a Highway 401 bridge where the woman suffered devastating head injuries in a crash. The crash occurred in October 1988. The 1999 Uniform Crime Reporting Survey showed an overall crime rate decrease of five per cent, including reported violent and property offences. However, the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada 2000 Annual Report, which monitors organized crime activities, described exponential growth of criminal organizations, including drug trafficking, credit card fraud and telemarketing scams. The discrepancy may be because most victims of organized crime do not report offences. Air, marine and rail travel in Canada is getting safer, with 209 fatalities in 2000, compared to a five year average of 291. Marine accidents fell to a 25-year low. Both train and airplane accidents dropped six per cent from 1999. Police charged 69,192 persons with impaired driving in 2000, a five per cent drop from 1999. The impaired driving rate had stabilized during 1998 and 1999 after 15 years of steady decline. Some of this decline could be attributed to a growing tendency by police to issue a road-side suspension, rather than charge some drivers tested to be slightly over the legal alcohol limit. American men live an average of 76 years, but male truck drivers only live an average of 61 years. This may be due to lifestyle factors. More truck drivers smoke - 54 per cent, compared to only 20 per cent of the adult male population. Other factors are diet, stress, sleep and exercise. Nurses miss more work due to illness or disability than other shift workers. They are also away longer, an average 15.4 days per year compared with 6.7 for all Canadian workers. Back injuries from lifting patients, stress and burnout are major problems. Unlike other workers, there are no limits on weights they can lift; and cutbacks mean they must often lift alone. Another factor is age - only one in 10 nurses is under 30.
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© 2002 Canada Safety Council |