Study Shows Left-Handed More Accident Prone

A study conducted last year to determine why fewer left-handed people are among the elderly population, was published in today's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine comparing the death and accident rates of left- and right-handed people.

Diane Halpern, a psychology professor at California State University at San Bernardino, and Stanley Coren, a researcher at the University of British Columbia, studied death certificates of 987 people in two Southern California counties and queried relatives of the subjects by mail about the subject's dominant hand.

The researchers found that left-handed people represent only 10 percent of the population and were four times more likely to die from injuries while driving than right-handed people, and six times more likely to die from accidents of all kinds. The average age of death for right-handed people was 75 while the average for left-handed people was 66, with right-handed females tending to live six years longer than left-handed females, and right-handed males living 11 years longer than left-handed males.

"The results are striking in their magnitude," said Halpern, a right-hander herself.