Monday, July 18, 2016

Who Has a Dangerous Job?

Being a police officer is about three times as dangerous as the average job in America, but that hardly compares with really dangerous work.

Collecting garbage is nearly three times as dangerous as being a cop. This chart is somewhat different than the one above because it is based on hours worked.
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4 comments:

Shadow said...

Those are accidents, right? Not intentional killings. That's a fundamental difference. Every stop, every confrontation is potentially dangerous. Over time that can lead to bad decisions by officers and civilians. Law enforcement is the one job that can take away your freedom, and law enforcement officers are a target. Not a good combination. If you added civilian casualties resulting from confrontations to the officer count, where would police end up on the chart?

July 18, 2016 at 11:18 AM
Anonymous said...

I think it's simply a fact that psychologically it is much more disturbing and resonant to most people when one dies or is even slightly at risk of dying from the intentional action of another human being, than the much greater risk of dying in an accident, or the virtually 100% chance of dying from some physical ailment, sooner or later. I know this isn't the way John thinks, but the mass of people simply don't think about death in relation to political questions in an actuarial way. And they aren't going to. This is why terrorism is and will continue to be more important to people than car or job accidents as a national concern. As a species, we are social and psychological creatures, not quantitative ones.

July 18, 2016 at 11:29 AM
John said...

Most of the deaths in the table are accidents. Some of those for the police are also care crashes, about 40%, although of course some of those might have been during chases. But for bartenders, homicide is the largest cause of death, and they are more likely to be murdered on the job than policemen.

July 18, 2016 at 12:02 PM
Anonymous said...

That's interesting about bartenders. Some reporter could probably make a name for themselves by writing about that.

July 18, 2016 at 12:11 PM

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