SAFETY MATTERS

Due to their fiery, explosive nature, it is understandable that safety and noise issues will always walk hand in hand with fireworks. Rightly so. Yet care must be taken not only when using fireworks but also when viewing the statistics and negative publicity relating to them.

When taken in isolation, as they always appear when presented by anti-fireworks groups, firework injury statistics can appear alarming, but when viewed within the context of all possible injury sources then fireworks do not appear to be particularly dangerous. The fact is that only around 0.017% of firework users will receive an injury from them - a figure to be envied by many other pass-times and activities. By way of context if we were to take the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents' own survey figures (the Home Accident Survey Statistics) a truer overall picture of fireworks' impact on people can be gleaned. Using the 2002 H.A.S.S figures, an estimated 1,723 people required some form of hospital treatment as a result of fireworks but from the same survey it can be seen that light bulbs injured an estimated 3,362 people; hot pipes 24,559; children's bicycles 10,004; dogs 64,063; domestic stairs and steps 235,012 and even cotton-buds caused 8,569 people to require help because of them.

So are fireworks the awful danger they are made out to be if cotton wool buds injure an estimated 5 times as many people in a given year? If such accident figures are to be used as an indicator for restrictions then should these restrictions not start at the top of the league table of accident causes and work their way down? An awful lot of everyday items would vanish before November the Fifth falls silent.

As to the noise nuisance aspect, much of the recent legislation has already resulted in a considerable reduction in the impact and perceived nuisance of fireworks and whilst it is true that many pets do not like the sound of fireworks they also probably dislike the sound of thunder, low flying aircraft, loud engines, booming music and a whole host of other everyday sources of sudden, loud noise. In the service of the police and the military and within the activities of the countryside animals are routinely subjected to close proximity bangs, courtesy of shotguns, military live firing, bird-scarers and quarry blasting, all apparently with little harm and very little concern. It would be interesting to see the reaction from countryside groups to any call for the banning of shotguns being fired within certain distances of animals, near dogs, during Grouse-shoots for instance.

Fireworks give pleasure and that is all they do and for this reason any danger associated with them is unacceptable in a modern cotton-wool wrapped society where all risk must be assessed, controlled and limited and where apparently the populace can no longer be trusted with their own fate and safety. Cars on the other hand are deemed important and for that reason we begrudgingly accept road deaths of 3500+ per year and injuries running into hundreds of thousands.

What of other non-essential yet injury producing activities? Footballs - they injure yearly approximately 19,475 people each year, many of whom are children and party balloons managed to injure a further 1,300 people whilst also producing indoor bangs easily loud enough to startle children, pensioners and pets. Should they not therefore be licensed, or banned? Of course not.

And finally, what should be made of smoking, which is not exactly essential for life. Beyond the direct health issues there comes a yearly toll of injuries, deaths and material losses due to fires caused directly, or indirectly by them. Would there still be any fireworks on sale in Britain had it been a firework instead of a cigarette that had caused the lethal fires at Bradford City Football Club, or beneath the escalator at Kings Cross Underground Station?