More recreational accidents in sunny weather
Leisure activities are heavily dependent on the weather. This has an impact on the number of accidents. A lot of sunshine, for example, leads to significantly more leisure accidents - even in the fall. This is shown by the Suva figures.
Falling temperatures, wet leaves or strong winds can have an unfavorable influence on the occurrence of accidents. Suva wanted to find out more and, as part of its "Accidents in Figures" series, investigated which weather conditions cause accident figures to rise the most. Thus, Switzerland's largest accident insurer merged the UVG accident figures with daily weather data from the Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss(link will open in a new window). Conclusion: "The influence of the weather on accident figures is mainly through the duration of leisure activities and comparatively little through an increased risk on individual days, such as black ice," says Peter Andermatt, a statistician at Suva.
More recreational accidents on bright days
In order to obtain meaningful results, the analysis of the influence of the weather distinguishes between clear days and cloudy days as defined by MeteoSwiss. Bright days have a sunshine duration of 80 percent and more. On cloudy days, the sun shines 20 percent and less. Thus, it can be observed that on workweek days with clear weather, about 25 percent more leisure accidents occur than on workweek days with cloudy weather. On weekends, there are even about 40 percent more leisure accidents. The influence of the weather also became clear last year: in the summer of 2015, the weather was nicer than in 2014, which led to a seven percent increase in leisure accidents from June to August for Suva.
Twice as many bicycle and motorcycle accidents
Leisure activities such as bicycling and motorcycling are preferably carried out when temperatures are pleasant and the sun is shining. Therefore, a seasonal increase and decrease of these activities and the corresponding accident figures can be observed between April and October. On bright days, there are about twice as many bicycle and motorcycle accidents as on cloudy days. There is hardly any difference in the number of car accidents.
Occupational accidents do not depend on the weather
The weather has only a minor influence on the number of occupational accidents. This is not surprising for occupations that are carried out indoors. But even in the construction industry, where around 28,000 occupational accidents occur every year, there are hardly any weather-related differences in accident figures.
Every year, around 267,000 people insured under the UVG have accidents at work. Around 527,000 accidents occur during leisure time.
Text and pictures: Suva
