Christmas safest day
Christmas is New Zealand’s safest day but Saturday – usually for sports, parties and leisure – takes the dubious title of New Zealand’s most accident-prone day.
New data from ACC shows that New Zealand’s top-three accident-prone days during the 12 months leading up to October 31, 2018 all fell on Saturdays.
Taking the overall crown, with 9651 accidents that made their way into ACC’s book of mishaps, was Saturday, May 5.
While ACC did not give details of specific injuries, Stuff records show that this was the day Warriors trio Isaac Luke, Shaun Johnson and Adam Blair were injured in a rugby league match against Wests Tigers at Mt Smart.
It was also the day it was revealed Ma¯ ori Party co-leader Marama Fox confirmed she had had dinner with controversial political donor Donghua Liu.
But other than somewhat predictable sporting injuries and a political injury – not covered by ACC – few injuries made the news that day.
Nipping on May 5’s heels came an earlier Saturday, April 7 – a day when 8693 Kiwis injured themselves to the extent ACC was called in.
The stage was set for a savage day the night before when John Casford, drunk and trying to impress a girl, broke into the squirrel monkey cage at Wellington Zoo with plans to capture one. By the time the incident was over, Casford had a broken leg, a broken tooth and multiple bruises from trying to get away.
But the day of his crime, and injuries, was a notably less safe day for Kiwis (if not monkeys). Just 5443 New Zealanders were injured that day.
Coming in at number three was another May Saturday – the 12th.
For one lucky New Zealander it was the day of an $18 million Lotto jackpot, but for 8512 New Zealanders it was not so good.
At the other end of the spectrum, Christmas Day 2017 shared the title of New Zealand’s least accident-prone day with an October Friday, the 12th. On both those days there were 4274 ACC-worthy injuries, which was less than half those on the most accident-prone day.
Taking out second spot – and proving that not all weekend days are perilous – was Sunday, July 8, 2018.
On that midwinter day – the same one that Croatia beat Russia to progress to the Fifa World Cup semifinals, and a whale dubbed Matariki frolicked in Wellington Harbour – just 4287 injuries made the ACC books.