Statistically speaking, travelers are safer when flying than when driving. In fact, the National Safety Council made a side-by-side comparison of the two and determined that a person’s odds of dying in a motor vehicle crash is 1 in 98 while their odds of experiencing a fatality in an airplane crash is just 1 in 7,178. So why, then, do humans fear flying so much? Experts believe it has something to do with the often catastrophic results of plane accidents.

A Single Crash Can Cause Hundreds of Injuries

Although they do not occur often, the results of plane crashes are usually devastating. Take, for example, the 20131 crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214, which killed two passengers and injured 307 members of the passengers and crew. Or the 2001 crash of an Airbus A300 that killed 265 people just moments after takeoff. And then there was the 1977 collision of two Boeing 747s (KLM and Pan Am) that killed 583 people – one of the most devastating accidents to date.

By Shawn Kasserman

Each year, around 4,000 construction workers are fatally injured on the job. Falling objects – tools, equipment, debris, and more – are responsible for approximately eight percent of those deaths, making them one of the most common causes of worker fatality. They are so common, in fact, that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have named them as one of construction’s “Fatal Four.” Yet records from the agency show that failure to provide protection from injury is one of the most commonly cited violations at work sites throughout the United States.

Failure to Provide Protection

By Shawn Kasserman

Designed to provide temporary stability, help to ensure tools and equipment are within reach, and provide greater flexibility when working at great heights, ladders and scaffolding are used by approximately 2.3 million construction workers (65 percent). But these safety devices can also be the very items that cause injury or death when they are not properly used or maintained. Because negligence often plays a big role in ladder and scaffolding injuries, and because the problem amounts to thousands of deaths and injuries each year, it is critical that workers know what protections they have under the law.

Prevalence of Ladder and Scaffolding Injuries Cause for Concern

There is an insidious, silent killer in the United States – one that patients are often oblivious to, doctors and hospitals refuse to talk about, and is now considered the third leading cause of death in the U.S., placing it just below cancer and heart disease. In total, it claims anywhere from 250,000 to 400,000 deaths per year, yet there is no system in place to effectively track or prevent these deaths. Even more disturbing is that this killer – otherwise known as medical malpractice  – occurs at the hands of those who are supposed to heal.

What You Do Not Know Can Hurt You

Sick people go to hospitals to get better, but hundreds of thousands will never leave. Victims of poorly coordinated care, preventable infections, system failures, falls, or any number of other, preventable causes, these patients will die a wrongful death at the hands of the doctor, nurse, or surgeon treating them. No one – not even their family – may fully understand the death because those same system failures that allowed the death are often used to cover up its true cause and nature. And therein lies one of the major contributing factors to this American epidemic.

The use of power equipment and heavy machinery have enabled faster, easier work for construction companies, which has, in turn, increased their profits and productivity. Unfortunately, foreman, subcontractors, and other responsible individuals still cut corners, fail to follow all safety regulations, and put both workers and the general public at risk. Construction crane accidents can especially dangerous and often have catastrophic consequences, yet they remain one of the most common types of construction accidents in the United States.

Crane Accidents Occur at an Alarming Rate

In the United States, approximately 125,000 cranes are currently being used in the construction industry. Another 80,000-100,000 cranes are thought to be in use in the general and maritime industries. All of them are regulated with rules regarding when and how they should be operated and secured; yet collapses still happen at an alarming rate.