I’ve been obsessing over buying a TV set. I missed buying one for cheap last Boxing Day, so now I annoy my better half by announcing the latest deals I find every day on various internet sites and newspaper flyers. Whilst leafing through the TV issue of the very informative Consumer Reports magazine (March 2009), I came across an interesting survey they did on Americans’ risky behaviour.

Amongst percentages of Americans that don’t tighten their seatbelts (24%) and eat raw cookie dough (39%--I don’t believe it’s this low for a second!), two other stats made me think about my own level of safety awareness:

21% of Americans surveyed change the batteries in smoke alarm regularly.

18% of Americans change the lint trap in their dryer after each use.

These numbers are significant in terms of fire safety. Just the other day my smoke detector went off in the middle of the night, signaling a possible fire in our building. It turned out to be a false alarm, but I was glad it worked anyway. What if I only had a regular fire alarm with batteries? If it didn’t beep when it was time to change the batteries (as the directions say it will), I’m sure I’d leave my AA’s in there long enough to corrode.

I only know about the importance of cleaning the lint trap because the salesman who sold me my current clothes dryer told me he’s dealt with more than a few dryer fires over the years. The dryer vent gets clogged with flammable lint, the heat gets more intense because it can’t ventilate, and boom! You’ve got yourself a fire in your dryer. If you infer that Canadian statistics are similar to U.S. ones, that means that 88% of people out there with dryers might be at risk of starting a fire in their homes.

When was the last time you cleaned out the lint trap in your dryer or checked and replaced the batteries in your fire detector?

Now that the Cool Sporting Event That Takes Place in British Columbia Between 2009 & 2011 is finished, everyone seems to be talking about the legacy of the games. Money, of course, is at the heart of it. The chatter isn’t all about debt and future funding for sports in Canada. There’s an interesting discourse happening about what the Olympics did for transit in the city.

To many people’s surprise, transit during the past few weeks ran fairly smoothly.

The result of restrictions to roads meant far more people taking public transit. Not only did people leave their cars at home to jump on the bus or trains, they got on bikes and walked a lot more.

The games were such an eye opener for alternatives to the car that city hall is talking about closing the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts.

So if we are heading to a future where more people are commuting on foot, bike, and other non-car-based transit, what does this mean for safety in our fair province?

Do more bicycles on the road mean that cyclists and drivers will be forced to share the road, and will this potentially mean more collisions?

And with more pedestrians possibly jamming up our sidewalks and streets, will this mean more or less pedestrian injury and fatalities?
 

What do you think we need to welcome and what to be wary of transit wise when it comes to safety post Olympics?

Have you ever climbed a mountain before? I haven’t. But I have gone to one of those indoor climbing walls. The way that knobby, craggy surface made my entire body feel has kept me from returning to the sport for, oh, about four years now. I’ve thought about throwing myself onto a real rock face before, but the physical toll and tragic news like this one on Mount St. Helen’s push rock climbing further down on my bucket list. 

This unfortunate news item reminded me of another climber who died unexpectedly in December. Guy Lacelle was famous in the mountain climbing world. The Northern BC resident didn’t just climb mountains, he climbed mountains covered with ice, and he climbed them well. But it only takes one wrong move, your own or an another's, to end a life instantly in this high-stakes sport. 

There’s no denying that people who partake in this extreme sport know the dangers. There's plenty of safety precautions to consider before you take up a sport that could transports you hundreds of feet above the ground. 

I’m interested in knowing when a sport is too dangerous for you to risk injury. Are you like me whose ambition starts and ends at the climbing wall? Or do you push your limits and take on more risks to challenge yourself?

Watching the world’s top athletes push their bodies to the limit makes me ponder how little physical activity I’m getting.

 I, like so many Canadians, have become a couch potato watching the 2010 Winter Olympics on TV.

The most activity I got this weekend was when I stood up to celebrate our first Gold Medal on Canadian soil. I quickly sat down after that.

Despite my deplorable lack of physical activity this weekend, I know sitting in front of the TV all weekend is the rule, not the exception for many British Columbians. If you’re getting into your later years, physical activity can be difficult, and watching TV isn’t. A nutritionist on Vancouver Island wrote an interesting article about the challenges the elderly face when it comes to preventing injury.

My parents are getting older, and they’ve changed their lifestyle to accommodate life changes like a growing lack of mobility. Preventing injury for the elderly is important considering statistics like,

“…People over 50 who have a hip fracture are dead within one year”

 
If you’re getting older or you know someone who is, what tips do you have for keeping the older generation safe from injury?

Michael Buble ran with the Olympic torch yesterday. That Canadian crooner with the fun last name (to be honest, I’m more a fan of his name than his music) and many international celebrities have had their famous hands on that space-age light over the past few months. The hand-picked celebrities chosen for the Olympics have sleekly clean reputations, a trait that’s hard to come by these days for the famous and adored.

Over Christmas all the talk on current affairs, talk shows, and late name stand-up routines was about the indiscretions of Tiger Woods. Actually, he’s still being talked about in the media, and it’s not about his golf game. If you recall, the Tiger Woods scandal started off as a car accident that, if the reports are correct, was caused by an argument about his marital indiscretions.
 

It used to be that celebrities caught drinking and driving was not a common story. Now, news of someone Hollywood-related getting cuffed for swerving dangerously in traffic seems almost expected.
 

One study shows that the portrayal of these criminal acts in the media pays little to no attention to the public health realities of committing these crimes. In fact, drinking is even a joking matter if you watched the Golden Globe Awards this year. And we can’t talk about celebrities and DUI without mentioning Paris Hilton.

So how do these seemingly cavalier attitudes of celebrities towards driving under the influence of alcohol factor into the general public’s attitude towards getting behind the wheel drunk?

 

I take vitamins. I take too many vitamins. I used to never take pills of any kind, but I recently started taking multivitamins. I also recently injured my back ( a whole other story), so I’ve been taking some pain-killers. The directions say to take two every six hours. I’m supposed to take one multivitamin pill a day. But yesterday I popped two multivitamins into my mouth. Why did I do that? Maybe I’m too busy, and I confused the dose with that of my pain killers. Perhaps I can’t resist their candy-like appearance. I don’t know. Regardless of why I did it, it happened. And I might have done it before.

So is taking too many vitamins a problem? I’m still here to type this blog.

But a group of Canadian physicians is worried about the affects of Canadians taking too many vitamins.

I read the pill bottle for what’s packed into each orange-coloured multi-vitamin I ingest, and I get the same feeling I got in grade school when I realized I had to learn the periodic table: bewilderment followed by fear. I really have no idea which vitamins I already get in my food each day and if I’m getting too many by throwing a multivitamin into my digestive process.

Preventable.ca conducted a poll last month on poisoning. The answer to the poll is that poisoning is most likely to occur at home. But can taking too many vitamins really end up in poisoning? Opinions within the health industry are mixed. And where do soluble vitamins fit in to this discussion? Young people seem to be more of a concern for over vitamizing (I just made that up) our bodies.

Do you know if you’re taking too many vitamins?

 

How do you as a cyclist avoid getting hit by cars turning right?

I’m not ready to get off my soapbox yet. I know, I know, I blogged about the issue of wearing helmets on the slopes before. Heck, I just blogged about it a couple of weeks ago. But a couple of weeks ago there wasn’t this interesting U of C study that reportedly claims,

“…wearing a helmet reduces the risk of head injuries in skiers and snowboarders by about 35 per cent.”

Hey, it’s fine if you don’t agree with me that everyone should wear a helmet, but science is now backing up what many other people having been saying for years. Don’t stop reading; I’m not going to go on about the dangers of not wearing a helmet. I think this number speaks for itself.

Now that the numbers are in, what do we do with this information? According to the same article, Safe Kids Canada wants to follow what the Italian’s did before their Winter Games in Torino and adopt a charter for the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver that would encourage everyone to wear helmets on the hills.

I challenge anyone to contend with such a charter. After all, it’s non-binding, so really, what do you have to contend with? Declarations like this can be seen as setting an example for people to follow, especially younger folks.

But is this enough? Does an issue as serious as head injuries warrant a more forthright action than a charter?

Is the Olympics the right place to raise awareness about helmet use on ski hills?

The other day I read about how a certain BC utility company makes safety a priority with their employees. This unto itself isn’t surprising, but when I say employees, I mean all employees. This includes the ones working outside in possible harm’s way and the hundreds of workers in offices with job titles that suggest paper cuts would be the most gruesome of injuries they could be exposed to. In reality, office work can have serious health problems especially if your environment isn’t ergonomically sound. Just ask anyone with carpal tunnel syndrome.

This company even discusses how employees can prevent injuries! The name of this company isn’t important. What’s important is the desire for safety to be the responsibility of everyone in the company.

Seeing how progressive this company is with safety concerns got me thinking about my exposure to safety measures at work. Rather, it’s more accurate to say safety messages my employers didn’t exposed me to.

When I was a gawky teen, I did pretty much any job that paid more than the last. I really don’t remember any concerted efforts to try to steer me from danger.

I recall working at a gas station and being asked to fill someone’s car with propane. Wanting to please the boss on my first day of work, I said I was fine to do so thinking, “How different can this be from pumping regular gas into cars?” It’s a lot different actually. While the liquid gradually filled the tank, I realized my hands had frozen into claw-like objects. I didn’t know you needed gloves to properly handle this amazingly cold substance that can cause frostbite quite quickly. I did manage to finish filling up the car, but I couldn’t feel my hands for about ten minutes.

Having worked at a large Canadian media outlet for a few years, I remember someone mentioning a safety document but was never actually told I had to know anything or even read anything to do with any sort of safety at the workplace.

Hell, I don’t even know if I could find the first-aid kit or if one even existed, let alone know what to do in case of a fire.

When I watch large-scale disasters on TV news like floods, fires, earthquakes, and the like, I sometimes think what I would do if one of those situations happened to me in Vancouver. If at home I’d know what to do, but at work, I can honestly say I have no plan.

Personally, I’d like to have a plan for dealing with injuries or disasters at work. Maybe I should make one.

Tell me, does your workplace have a plan to prevent injuries?

It seems like I just blogged about pedestrian safety. Hold up, I did! I don’t normally double up on my topics, but pedestrian safety issues have eclipsed the media attention on the use of electronic devices while driving and wearing helmets on the slopes.

There have been at least four pedestrian deaths in Metro Vancouver this year.

The latest was a senior, a victim of a hit and run in Burnaby. But we’re not the only ones with this rash of pedestrian-related tragedies. The Toronto area is having similar problems. There have been 14 pedestrian deaths in Toronto and its metropolitan area in 2010.

In the wake of these Toronto area tragedies, there’s been no lack of ideas on how to curb what some are calling a trend. The police solution is to ticket j-walkers. Others think drivers and cars should be scrutinized.

In the City of Vaughn, Ontario (just outside of Toronto), some think it’s the rules themselves that are contributing to pedestrian deaths. A city councilor in Vaughn has set up a task force to try to deal with the problem.

Bringing the discussion back to the left coast, I’m wondering:

Who or what is to blame for the pedestrian deaths in Metro Vancouver?