The Most Dangerous Profession

What's the most dangerous job? Being a police officer? A firefighter? A lineman with a utility company? How about "fishers and related fishing workers"? (BTW - 007 doesn't count.)

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, fishermen (commercial, not recreational) top the list of most deadly occupations. Also on the list, at #10 -- cab driver. (A few other interesting stats from the list: "Refuse and recyclable material collectors" weigh in at # 6, "Roofers" are #7, and "Electrical power-line repairers and installers" -- see above under "lineman" -- are #8.)

A recent (Oct. 7) article in the Chicago Sun-Times reports that

A new survey from the University of Illinois at Chicago... found that one in five Chicago cabdrivers has been physically attacked on the job.... Cab and livery drivers are 60 times more likely to be murdered on the job than other workers, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

According to the special report "Years of Living Dangerously," cab drivers are

victim to more non-fatal assaults (184 per 1,000 cabbies) than any other occupation with the exception of police (306 per 1,000) and private security guards (218 per 1,000).

Why do patrons (and others) attack cabbies? "Is It Too Easy to Clobber a Cabbie?" (Oct. 15 issue of the Chicago Reader) provides some insights:

Cabbies do risky work: driving alone, late at night, carrying cash, they are prime targets. But according to reports from drivers and a study by the University of Illinois at Chicago's School of Labor and Employment Relations that was released October 7, the scariest people many drivers face aren't robbers with guns or lead pipes in "bad" neighborhoods but rather inebriated white-collar types partying in trendy areas.

Peter Enger, an organizer for the United Taxidrivers Community Council, says "we suffer the most violence in the most highly trafficked areas. It's the drunks and rowdies who perpetrate violence on the cabdrivers. Is it because [drivers] are immigrants, because of prejudice? We don't know. But what we do know is they do it because they can."

Another dangerous profession -- convenience store clerk. A piece from 2002 in the Christian Science Monitor found "an uptick in store-clerk murders in the past three years, jumping from 78 to 111 between 1999 and 2000 alone." The article informs us that

Other experimental safety measures [besides plate glass and drop safes] haven't always worked. Already, a mandate by many oil companies to put two people on the night shift at gas stations has backfired: more clerk killings, it turns out, happen when there are two people there. "They're killing the witnesses," says [Wilson] Beach [director of the Service Station Dealers of America and AlliedTrades].

"Cabbies and clerks?" you scoff. "Common knowledge says that cops and firefighters have the most dangerous jobs." Let me say: I have the utmost respect for police officers and firefighters. In fact, of my two favorite uncles, one was a police officer and the other was a fireman (back when there were firemen). But that doesn't change the facts.

We learn from the Officer Down Memorial Page that, for 2009, line-of-duty deaths for police officers have been largely attributable to automobile accidents (28) and to gunfire (36). (Note that "struck by vehicle," "vehicle pursuit," and "vehicular assault" -- which, combined, accounted for 15 deaths -- are separate categories from "automobile accident"). The breakdown is similar in prior years, with auto-related deaths equivalent to gunfire fatalities.

Or look at casualties compiled by the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA). One hundred fifteen firefighters died, on average, each year over the past 10 years. (On-duty injuries were much higher, in the tens of thousands every year.)

Make no mistake: every one of those deaths is an incredible loss. My point is that cabbies and clerks are often as much in harm's way as are police officers and firefighters. Unlike cabbies and clerks (who are dying in comparable numbers), police officers and firefighters are rigorously trained, appropriately garbed, and adequately armed. With extensive backup and state-of-the-art resources.

Cabbies and clerks -- lacking all that, vulnerable and alone -- could even be considered more heroic than their firefighting, law-enforcing counterparts. So why is it that, when one of them is killed, it rarely makes the news?