The linked thread was on about something completely different but this came up and is interesting (I think).
I was born in 1967 so was a kid in the early 70s. We rode bikes without wearing helmets, we got pellet rifles, we played with lawn darts, walked to school, roamed the neighborhood till we had to be home for dinner and so on.
But by today’s sensibilities this was borderline criminal to let kids do this stuff.
So, are kids safer today than they were when I was a kid in the 70s? (or earlier)
IMO they are better protected for the cases where it becomes necessary.
Yes, we have to beware of “survivor bias” – WE were all right and lived. Others lost the gamble. But I believe we must also consider the reality is that back when, the vast majority of us were not throwing around lawn darts, shooting bb guns or riding in the bed of a pickup truck or the back of a station wagon unsecured 24/7, either. Most of us never fell headfirst off our bike onto concrete at high speed to begin with. It was not and it IS not like a kid’s engaging in some life-endangering activity every instant as soon as they get out of bed and basically we were relying on the law of probabilities to save us.
This isn’t exactly the right number, because it’s children ages 5 and under (so it doesn’t cover 8 year olds riding bikes with no helmets), but childhood mortality in the U.S. in 2020 was about 1/4 as frequent as it was in 1970: 7 per 1000 children in 2020, compared to 26 in 1970.
I think a big part of the puzzle is that we had a certain amount of “herd safety” back then. It was never just one kid roaming around alone, it was always a gaggle of us (I was born in 1972, so more mid-70s/early-80s for me) riding our bikes around, getting into mischief, but more importantly, if someone jumped their bike over the makeshift ramp and “cracked their head open”, there was someone who could go get someone’s mom, someone to help out, and someone to hide the evidence.
Nowadays without the herd, it is just one kid roaming around and being much more of at target and at-risk…
The death rate due to car accidents has gone down, as cars have gotten much safer, and things like seat belts and car seats are mandated.
For the last 10 years or so, I think firearms are the leading cause of death in kids, and that rate has been going up.
In a general answer: Yes, kids are much safer today than they used to be. “If it bleeds it leads” so news stories covering childhood death often distort this view for people. All they see are stories about kids dying, therefore things must be very dangerous. “Back when I was a kid I never saw stories about that,” because you went to bed before the news came on…
Not sure how to interpret this, lol. Deaths < 20 steadily decreased, almost at the same inverse rate as the deaths > 20 increased. But there’s no measure of how many total (living) riders there were.
It’d be funny if the increased death rate was from all those 80s kids who still don’t wear helmets…
The big positive is the huge drop in motor vehicle deaths, until a slight uptick recently.
Some rise is gun deaths (both homicide and suicide) and recent years drug deaths.
And there are other smaller numbers I can dig up if you want. There were every year a few kids killed by big televisions falling on them off a small table or counter. Kids drowning in buckets.
Here’s a photo of my grandmother (on the left, holding my mother) with two of her sisters. The baby on the right died at 18 months by drowning in a slop bucket. (Food waate dumped in it for giving to hogs.)
I was born in 1951. I went through at least the first ten years of my life not wearing a seatbelt. I went to the NY World’s Fair (one bus ride and subway stop away from me) several times with no adults. Usually a friend or two, but I think I went by myself once.
And besides automobile accidents a lot of the clothing we wore was flammable. No smoke detectors. No CO detectors.
I believe the quoted statistics.
Hell, I was born in 1965, and I never wore a seatbelt until I started driving, at age 16. Wearing a seatbelt was certainly not behavior that was modeled by my parents, or any of the adults or other kids I knew; it was kind of a trope that the seatbelts in the back seat of every car were stuffed down in between the seat cushion and back cushion, and if you wanted to wear one, you’d have to dig it out from its hiding place.
A very frustrating thing is that many kids stop wearing their helmets around middle school years, exactly when they start to become more important - higher up, riding faster, more often near cars.
Which brings @Reply’s wondering about why the increase in deaths over 20 years old. My WAG is that cars have gotten much bigger, both in mass and in number location. Fatalities rate of cyclists per bike motor vehicle collision have I suspect increased helmet or no helmet.
Same here. For my first 16(ish) years we didn’t wear seatbelts. I was kind of opposed to them (at that time and for no good reason). I was fortunate I was never in a car crash.
Shortly before my 16th birthday, my cousin, who is a year older than me, and with whom I’ve always been very close, was in a car accident, when a truck ran into his car. He showed me photos of just how trashed his car was, but likely because he was wearing a seat belt, the only injury he sustained was a cut lip. That got my attention, and I adopted the habit.
Way safer. Seatbelts. No riding in the back of pickups. Helmets. Vaccinations. An awareness of child molestors. Child seats.
If someone had a pick up, us kids rode in the back- and we even did this into our 20’s.
Young people will wear all black, with a hoodie up, and stare fixedly at their phone while crossing streets, etc. I was talking to some young men riding their bikes at nite- they had no lights or reflectors, and of course dark colored clothes. They seriously claimed “You cant hit what you can’t see”. Then we have violent drug gangs with guns, recruiting younger and younger.
So, some dude walking face in phone crosses in front of some soccer mom driving her 'ultra safe " Suburban, and who is texting as she drives. Reverse the sexes and it also works. Careless walker, careless driver= dead ped.
It’s depressing because it’s so unnecessary. It’s a particular type of bucket that kids drown in - not the small type that’s sold for mopping like.This
Suburban, and who is texting as she drives. Reverse the sexes and it also works. Careless walker, careless driver= dead ped.