By now all readers of this blog know what happened at the Boston Marathon. What perhaps none of us know in any depth is why the perpetrators took these actions. Most US commentators seem content to simply describe it as ‘terrorism’, which it certainly is. But at least one high ranking Canadian went one step [...]

Distracted driving has justifiably received a tremendous amount of attention in the injury prevention field. But the issue of distractions and the associated injury risk might be getting even bigger and becoming more relevant outside of the motor vehicle realm. There is lots of interesting speculation about an impending boom in wearable computing. Several major [...]

Readers may recall that in March I entered a post regarding hot water scalds, sharing the vivid memories I still have - 30 years later – of my cousin’s dreadful injuries. Whilst hot water remains a potential and significant source of injury to babies and small children, there are a variety of other thermal hazards which also place these vulnerable members [...]

Falls are a significant concern for older persons, and for older persons with medical conditions in particular, and as such they feature frequently in the injury prevention literature. A number of articles addressing this considerable source of injury, examining the problem from a variety of perspectives, have caught my attention. The perceptions of older community-dwelling [...]

On March 14th, 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) released the second Global Status Report on Road Safety* (GSRRS-2013). Overall, the GSRRS-2013 concludes that “the number of road traffic deaths each year has not increased (from 2007 to 2011) – but remains unacceptably high at 1.24 million per year.” The GSRRS-2013 also noted the global [...]

A report in the Toronto Star notes that vulnerable road users are less well protected than our politicians would have us believe. According to  a new WHO report Canada is now at the “ back of the pack when it comes to policies aimed at protecting vulnerable road user”. The report states that 77 per [...]

Last month the Washington Post had a story describing the role the NRA has played in shaping current US gun regulations. This is an excerpt which I hope will persuade blog readers that my apparent obsession with the NRA is fully justified. As recently as 1977 the role of the second amendment to the US [...]

Rafael Consunji sent me this delightful item: It describes the Calcutta Traffic Police’s idea of  using the Beatles to teach “unruly Kolkata pedestrians to use zebra crossings” inspired by the iconic cover of their album, Abbey Road. Posters of the Beattles crossingAbbey Road in single-file appear at busy intersections  with the caption “If they can, why can’t [...]

My interest in brain injuries, and most importantly the capacity to prevent them (readers may recall my blog in February regarding Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy), and injury prevention for children in particular (such as my most recent post regarding hot water scalds) was stimulated again after reading the recent publication “Mechanisms of team-sport-related brain injuries in children 5 to [...]