Living In Philly Will Get You Killed … By A Car

The Inky says that Philadelphia is more dangerous than other big cities, but totally not for the reason you think.

Even though cities have higher rates of crime and murder, a new study finds that overall, urban areas are safer than the sticks. However, that counterintuitive conclusion doesn’t fit Philadelphia. The City of Brotherly Love turns out to be about as risky as rural areas, largely because of car accidents.

Yes, the real danger to Philly citizens is Cadillac-on-Cadillac violence. Why would that be? One expert suggests that “”Here, large highways run through the city, whereas in other cities, the highways may skirt the city.”

Science Codex takes a look at the bigger picture:

The new study, which appears online ahead of print in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, found that for the entire population, as well as for most age subgroups, the top three causes of death were motor vehicle collisions, firearms, and poisoning. When all types of fatal injuries are considered together, risk of injury-related death was approximately 20 percent lower in urban areas than in the most rural areas of the country.

“Perceptions have long existed that cities were innately more dangerous than areas outside of cities, but our study shows this is not the case” said lead study author, Sage R. Myers, MD, MSCE, assistant professor of Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine and attending physician, Department of Emergency Medicine at CHOP. “These findings may lead people who are considering leaving cities for non-urban areas due to safety concerns to re-examine their motivations for moving. And we hope the findings could also lead us to re-evaluate our rural health care system and more appropriately equip it to both prevent and treat the health threats that actually exist.”