Wednesday September 5, 2001
Senior Citizens Not the Most Dangerous Drivers
Older drivers have long been considered unsafe drivers, hindrances in a fast-paced society. But The Washington Post says that new studies show that seniors behind the wheel are a greater threat to themselves than to their fellow travelers. The studies, released today by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which represents major auto insurers, show that older drivers have a higher death rate than other groups because they are more susceptible to injury, not because they have more accidents.
The Times reports, “The studies show that older drivers kill fewer motorists and pedestrians than any other age group and have the lowest crash rates per licensed driver. The number of older drivers is growing at a faster rate than any other age group, and older drivers are keeping their licenses longer and driving more miles. The elderly are expected to continue to be underrepresented in all crashes in future years. The study used federal statistics from the National Personal Transportation Survey for 1995, the latest year available. It showed that people over 65 accounted for 17 percent of the population and 14 percent of licensed drivers. Older drivers were involved in 8 percent of police-reported accidents, but made up 13 percent of the drivers in fatal crashes.”
Schools Ban Peanut Butter
KING-TV Seattle reports, “Dozens of schools are no longer offering peanut butter sandwiches, or anything with peanuts in school breakfasts and lunches. That’s because a small number of students suffer life-threatening peanut allergies. A few schools are going even a step further to protect those students, by asking parents not to send peanut products in lunches from home.
–Approximately one third of emergency-room visits for anaphylaxis may be due to peanut sensitivity
-Immediate hypersensitivity to peanuts is a frequent cause of anaphylactic reactions and deaths in children and adults
-Food allergies, particularly to peanuts, are a common cause of anaphylaxis. Here are some statistics : Approximately 125 people die each year in the USA secondary to food-induced anaphylaxis. . . Anaphylaxis is recognized by cutaneous, respiratory, cardiovascular, and gastrointestinal signs and symptoms occurring singly or in combination.
-here is a huge peanut allergy resource webite.
-Time Magazine reports, “You may be surprised to learn that the Food Allergy Network, a seven-year-old advocacy group based in Fairfax, Va., agrees. “Peanut bans don’t work,” says Ann Munoz-Furlong, founder of the network. “They’re counterproductive, and they create a false sense of security.” She favors teaching kids what to do in case of an allergic reaction (children with the most severe reactions need to carry emergency adrenaline shots with them) and to beware of peanut products hidden in such foods as home-baked cookies and Chinese takeout.”
-some medical links to explain the allergic reaction
CEO’s Get Big Raises While Laying off Workers
As the economy began to stall last year and companies laid off workers, chief executives of big corporations still got hefty pay raises and were rewarded for making job cuts, according to a new study by two liberal advocacy groups. A “decade of greed” in the 1990s was followed last year by a particularly “blatant pattern of CEOs benefiting at the expense of their workers,” the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy said in their latest annual pay survey.
The study says, “CEOs of firms that announced layoffs of 1,000 or more workers this year earned about 80 percent more, on average, than executives at 365 top firms surveyed by Business Week. The layoff leaders earned an average of $23.7 million in total compensation in 2000, compared with a $13.1 million average for executives as a whole. The top job-cutters received an increase in salary and bonus of nearly 20 percent in 2000, compared to average raises in that year for U.S. wage workers of about 3 percent and for salaried employees of 4 percent.”
To look up corporate compensation for any publicly traded company, go to http://www.10kwizard.com
How Bosses Take Vacations
According to a survey of 1,100 senior executives by the American Management Association. Some 26 percent will be in daily contact with their offices while on vacation, and two-thirds will check in at least once a week. Of those, 34 percent remain in touch by e-mail (vs. 21 percent in 1998) and 52 percent rely on cell phones (up from 37 percent). In Europe, where vacation is mandated by law rather than based on time served, entire countries routinely shut down for a month at a time. But one need look no further than a current ad campaign by Gateway Computers–which features a woman multitasking with her laptop in a kayak–to recognize the American approach.
