Strong Justice For Serious Disease

Jobs With the Highest Fatality Rate in the United States

On Behalf of | Aug 29, 2012 | Work-Related Deaths

The jobs typically considered the most dangerous in the United States do not necessarily have the highest fatality rates. A safety education company extracted data from the 2010 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, according to Huffington Post, and found that jobs that require driving actually have the most fatalities.

Driving jobs may include truck drivers, certain construction jobs and traveling sales persons. The data also revealed that of those who are killed on the job, 92 percent are men while only 8 percent are women. In addition, it seems as though age and the likelihood of a fatality go hand-in-hand – those 65 years and older saw more workplace fatalities than any other age bracket.

The data breaks down to show that 39 percent of fatalities that happen on the job are incidents that occurred while the victim was driving. Of that number, 21 percent of the fatalities happened on a highway – 2010 claimed 683 people in transportation-related on-the-job fatalities.

Although Pennsylvania was not the state with the highest number of workplace fatalities, it ranked toward the top, with a total of 219 deaths in 2010. The state with the highest number of workplace fatalities had 456 deaths and the second highest saw 302 deaths.

Other statistics showed that the fatal injury rates by age bracket decreased between the ages of 16-17 and 20-24, and then increased for each subsequent age bracket. The fatal injury rate for people between 25 to 34 years was 2.6 in 2010, while the rate for those 65 and older jumped to 11.5. The average fatal injury rate for all age groups was 3.5.

Those in fishing-related occupations saw 29 fatal accidents in 2010, the logging industry saw 59 fatal injuries and police officers/sheriff’s patrol officers saw 133 fatal injuries. Drivers, sales workers and truck drivers saw 683 total fatal injuries in 2010.

Source: Huffington Post, “The Deadliest Jobs in America,” Drew Guarini, August 22, 2012.

Our firm handles situations in which fatalities occur on the job due to another’s negligence. If you would like to learn more about our practice, please visit our Pittsburgh wrongful death page.

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