WHERE ACCIDENTS HAPPEN.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 16, Issue 93, 2 December 1902, Page 2

WHERE ACCIDENTS HAPPEN.

According to the experience of the accident insurance companies, about the safest place for a man to bo is in a train or aboard an ocean steamer.

Contrary to popular belief, the majority of accidents for which the insurance companies are called upon to settle, do not occur on railways or steamships. In fact the proportion of such accidents are small.

Experience shows that it is the simple pedestrian who runs the most risks outside the extra hazardous occupations, and oftenest applies to the company which issued his policy. The most recent figures of one accident insurance company show that in 1900, 14,425 claims for accidents wore allowed and paid. Of this number 1,606 were accidents to pedestrians.

Horses and vehicles accupy a prominent place as causing accidents, and to them 1,017 are attributed. Next to these in order of importance comes the sot of causes grouped under the heading of "At Home.” In this class are placed 920 of the accidents for which the company was called on to settle.

Hail ways and steamships are set down as being responsible for only 299 of the accidents of that year, and the small figures are the more remarkable when it is remembered that people are most likely to take out accident insurance when they go travelling. During the same year under 395 accidents were attributed to bicycles, while for the three years immediately preceding, counting backwards the company settled for 450, 556, and 884 accidents from this cause.

All accidents in factories, in the erection of buildings, bridges and other structures, accidents arising from the use of edged tools, those met with by labourers and men at work in the trades, are grouped together and, as might be expected, outnumber any other class. ' In fact, it seems that to the working man ami the labourer comes the largest risks and the greatest dtyoger.