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Tags: accidents | rise | minds | wander | Steve Casner

NASA Psychologist: US Minds Wander as Accidental Deaths on the Rise

NASA Psychologist: US Minds Wander as Accidental Deaths on the Rise
(Getty Images/Mario Tama)

By    |   Monday, 19 June 2017 08:56 PM EDT

Accidental deaths are on the rise, according to a NASA psychologist who wrote a book about the injury-prone mind.

Steve Casner, according to USAToday, reported in his book Careful: A User's Guide to Our Injury-Prone Minds, kitchen-knife related injuries are the cause of about 330,000 emergency room visits per year in the U.S. and about 36,000 kids land in the ER because of bunk bed falls.

He also said about 50 percent of fatal accidents happen at home, and he wrote in his book Americans are in the midst of a safety crisis.

The main cause, Casner argued, is the mind wanders too much.

"Even the greatest safety tips and inventions only managed to inch us gradually in the direction of being more careful," Casner, a jet and helicopter pilot who also skateboards, wrote. "Working a new way of being more careful into our routines won't be any easier or faster."

Since 2000, the accidental death rate has risen and, in 2015, car fatalities, driver, pedestrian, and cyclist deaths rose by eight, 10, and 12 percent, respectively.

"We have come to the end of a really good run," Casner concluded. "We have wrung all the big gains we're going to get from putting rubber corners on stuff and saying, 'Hey, don't do that.''

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US
Accidental deaths are on the rise, according to a NASA psychologist who wrote a book about the injury-prone mind.
accidents, rise, minds, wander, Steve Casner
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2017-56-19
Monday, 19 June 2017 08:56 PM
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