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Yes, I was primarily talking about vehicle crashes, although the article I have does not specify which of the categories I mentioned above (car accidents, fires, falls, poisoning, drowning or workplace accidents) contributed to a particular city's rank or grade.
OK, I found a link to an interactive map related to this article. The article itself is also on the web, but it does not look like the print version I have from the magazine with the rankings and letter grades. If you click on ABQ on the interactive map, it gives you its rank for major categories of accidents. It seems like car crashes and poisonings are ABQ's weak points. Here's the link to the map: Metrograde: America’s Most Accident-Prone Cities: Men’s Health.com
Well, thanks for looking that up. It sure is a set of confusing information for me. I kind of wandered around, and just looked at other places I was familiar with. Having come to this area for the first time in 1968 with visits since we decided to move here in 1998 after having lived in AL, AZ, FL, GA, MA, MD, NY, PA, SC, TX and Overseas.
I have been looking at the 10 best place list for about 30 years. If I moved to each new one every year I would have been a very unhappy person.
The Albuquerque area is not for everyone. Trying to judge an area without going to actually visit would be negligent in my opinion. I many times do not trust the lists as the criteria change each year. Poisonings being ABQ's weakest point sure has me stumped...
manyroads. maybe you need to put that magazine down and come on out for a visit?
The Albuquerque area is not for everyone. Trying to judge an area without going to actually visit would be negligent in my opinion. I many times do not trust the lists as the criteria change each year. Poisonings being ABQ's weakest point sure has me stumped...
manyroads. maybe you need to put that magazine down and come on out for a visit?
Rich
I agree with you about making visits to areas one is considering for relocation. I've done that with areas here on the east coast that I'm considering; just haven't gotten out to ABQ yet.
I read that the lion's share of motor vehicle accidents (particularly in NM) are against pedestrians. (Imagine a drunk on Central who staggers across the street in pitch black, or one that decides the best place to take a nap is behind the rear wheels of a parked vehicle).
I think it's very safe to say that alcohol and drug use are the primary cause of NM's accident rate, and they can just tip the "accident vs. nothing happens" scales often enough to drive that number way higher than it should be.
Albuquerque has probably the worst drivers out of everywhere I've lived. They don't pay attention, they're hostile and sometimes just plain dumb. I've never lived in a city where so many people drive below the speed limit in the far left lane, forcing traffic to pass on the right. Add in alcohol and our roads are a complete disaster.
I had put aside an article from Men's Health magazine a while ago on accident rates in different cities. The magazine looked at numbers for fatal workplace accidents, accidental deaths from car crashes, poisoning, drowning, falls and fires, and number of emergency room visits, and then ranked the cities from 100 to 1, with 100 being most accident-prone, and 1 being least accident-prone. All of the cities also received letter grades.
ABQ was among the most accident-prone cities on the list, with a ranking of 92 and a letter grade of F.
Quote:
Originally Posted by manyroads
OK, I found a link to an interactive map related to this article. The article itself is also on the web, but it does not look like the print version I have from the magazine with the rankings and letter grades. If you click on ABQ on the interactive map, it gives you its rank for major categories of accidents. It seems like car crashes and poisonings are ABQ's weak points.
That's not the way I read the scores given to ABQ on the interactive site; they are:
-on the job = 68
-car crashes = 9
-poison = 3
-drowning = 31
-falling = 17
-fires = 38
-ER visits = 77
-overall = 92
That means car crashes and poison are the lowest, not highest, factors in the overall rating. The highest are on the job and ER visits. I think a relatively high incidence of ER visits is probably directly related to lots of poor folks and/or those without insurance. Not sure about on the job but this could also be related to poorer folks and others who try to maximize their coverage under workers comp.
Seems to me like the rankings just reflect what we already know - NM is a poor state with lots of folks who don't have insurance coverage.
That's not the way I read the scores given to ABQ on the interactive site; they are:
-on the job = 68
-car crashes = 9
-poison = 3
-drowning = 31
-falling = 17
-fires = 38
-ER visits = 77
-overall = 92
That means car crashes and poison are the lowest, not highest, factors in the overall rating.
They weren't consistent with how the made the rankings. If you look at the tabs with the top ten lists you will see that we had the 3rd highest number of poisonings and the 9th highest number of car crashes. However the overall ranking is the 92nd LEAST accident prone city or the 9th most accident prone would have been consistent with the rest of their stats..
The ER visit ranking got me thinking.. are those accidents _in_ the ER?
Poisoning is probably very drug-related, either from drugged out parents making their house kid-hazardous, or people drinking methanol for the buzz.
On the job, again, going by the numbers, likely to be drug-related. Otherwise drug testing wouldn't be mandatory after an on the job accident at so many places.
The ER number doesn't surprise me. We don't really have enough doctors here, and many folks don't have insurance. Both of those tend to result in higher than normal numbers of ER visits. I have friends on a supposedly good local insurance plan who have to wait 4-6 weeks to see any kind of specialist, regardless of the reason for the referral. We have very few walk-in neighborhood clinics, especially in the areas outside the big cities. Medical care is hard to get here. Nope, no surprise at all on that ER number.
I wonder, do meth and other drug overdoses get reported and categorized under 'poisoning'? That would help explain that number.
As ralthor pointed out (and it is confusing) the rankings of individual accident categories are in order from MOST to LEAST... so, ABQ is the city with the 3rd MOST poisonings, but only the 77th most ER visits. So the ER visits stat is good for us, since 76 cities rank worse than we do (and we are around 34th in population).
The overall "score" is 92, and in this case it means 91 cities are less accident-prone than ABQ... a very poorly done study.
I think most poisonings occur in children who ingest chemicals. Maybe some poisonings happen to adults at the Labs. I would imagine that there's really not a lot of difference between cities in this (and other) categories, but still everyone's interested in "rankings". I would bet chances of accidental poisoning are extremely small in all the cities studied.
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