Is the full moon the cause of many fatal traffic accidents?

According to Mirror, scientists have just announced a new discovery about the relationship between traffic accidents and the phenomenon of the full moon. Specifically, scientists found that the full moon is related to the increased risk of motorbike accidents, even causing death in the UK, Australia, the US and Canada.

The findings were published in The BMJ (a famous medical journal in the UK and the oldest in the world). In the post, scientists advise motorcyclists to be careful during the full moon. The reason is that the full moon can distract drivers.

The study has only stopped at the level of correlation between the full moon and the number of traffic accidents. Now, Professor Donald Redelmeier (University of Toronto, Canada) and Professor Eldar Shafir (Princeton University, USA) have planned to further study how the full moon is related to deaths due to motorbike accidents.

According to research, driving on a full moon night is more dangerous.

In the study, they analyzed motor vehicle crashes in the United States from 1975 to 2014, and calculated the number of fatal crashes on full moon nights compared to the nights one week before and one week after. They found that a total of 13,029 fatal motor vehicle crashes occurred over 1,482 nights, of which 494 occurred on full moon nights (one-third).

More specifically, there were 4,494 fatal accidents during the 494 full moon nights, or about 9.1 per night; and 8,535 accidents during the remaining 988 nights, or about 8.64 per night. The difference was also noted after analyzing data from the UK, Australia, and Canada.

Another noteworthy statistic is that of the 494 full moon nights mentioned above, 65 were supermoon nights (meaning the Moon was larger and brighter than a normal full moon). During those 65 nights, there were a total of 703 fatal accidents, or about 10.82 accidents per night - a much higher rate than on normal full moon nights as well as on non-full moon nights.

The researchers said that this was just a study based on data analysis. Therefore, they did not draw any definite conclusions about the causes and consequences of the events. In fact, not only distraction but also some other factors may be involved, such as weather. But through this discovery, the researchers have a basis to advise people to drive more carefully, especially on full moon nights. Some safety measures include wearing helmets, turning on headlights, paying attention to the road, being careful with the weather, obeying traffic laws, etc.

According to Dan Viet