Hello Gene,
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, there were
64,219 injuries in 2002 related to "2-wheeled, powered, off-road
vehisle", otherwise known as dirtbikes. Of these, 3,683 injuries were
serious enough to require hospitalization. There were no reports of
fatalities in the CPSC database.
CPSC operates the "National Electronic Injury Surveillance System"
which is available online at:
http://www.cpsc.gov/Neiss/oracle.html
At the bottom of the page is a button to "QUERY NEISS". Pressing this
will take you to a query page where you can specify many different
types of data: what caused the
injury (in your case, Product Code 5036 -- TWO-WHEELED, POWERED,
OFF-ROAD VEHICLES), how serious was the injury (fatal, needing
hospitalization, etc), what part of the body was injured (head, arms,
etc), and where did the injury occur (home, school, farm, etc).
Running a query gives you a simple numerical result:
==========
NEISS Query Results
Product Codes: 5036 - Two-Wheeled, Powered, Off-Road Vehicles
From 01/01/2002 to 12/31/2002
Historical Estimate: 64,219 National injury estimate
==========
A separate query gave me:
Treated & Admitted For Hospitalization, Hospitalized
Historical Estimate: 3,683
==========
Note, too, that you can access individual case reports that look like this:
CPSC Case #: 20110598 Treatment Date: 01/02/2002 PSU: 60 Weight:
68.8791 Stratum: S
Age: 17 Sex: 1 - MALE Race: 1 - WHITE Race Other:
Diagnosis: 72 - AVULSION Diag Other:
Body Part: 30 - SHOULDER
Disposition: 1=TREATED & RELEASED, OR EXAMINED & RELEASED WITHOUT TRTMNT
Location: 9 - SPORTS OR RECREATION PLACE Fire Involvement: 0 - NO FIRE INVOLVEMENT
Products: 5036 - TWO-WHEELED, POWERED, OFF-ROAD VEHICLES
Narrative: FELL OFF DIRT BIKE ONTO LT. SHOULDER
DX: CONTUSION LT. SHOULDER W/ AVULSION CORACOID PROCESS
============
It's a powerful system, but also takes a bit of playing around with to
become familiar with its capabilities.
So go ahead and play.
If you have any questions about it all, just let me know by posting a
Request for Clarification, and I'll be happy to help.
Have fun.
pafalafa-ga
search strategy: used bookmarked sites for injury statistics |