Was Hot Fuzz a Documentary?

An unconscionably long time ago, Abhi posted a link on my Facebook wall to a study about the comparative dangers of living in the city versus living out in the country, with the instructions "BLOOOOG! GOOOOOO!" I meant to write about it a lot sooner, but, you know. Annual family reunion/beach vacation, so like, nothing productive happening THAT week. Now that my vacation's over and my sunburn's faded enough that I can wear shirts again, it's high time for some bloggin'!

The National Geographic article is split into five "surprising" facts about country living versus city living, "surprising" mostly because they run counter to some conventional wisdom about safety. Following their lead, I'm going to use this study's findings to address three key quotes from the cinematic masterpiece on the relative dangers of small town life, Hot Fuzz.

SANDFORD'S FINEST

1. "With respect sir, geographical location shouldn't factor in the application of the law."

The people conducting the study gathered information on death-by-injury from all 3,141 counties in the United States, starting in 1999 and continuing til 2006. They assigned each county a score on a 10-point urban-rural continuum that "distinguishes counties by both population size and proximity to metropolitan areas," similar to classifications used by the US Department of Agriculture, and analyzed trends in various causes of death in different kinds of counties. I read through the scientific article (available through the National Geographic article linked above), and they definitely did their homework: using time-series models to account for repeated measures from the same counties, eliminating variables that might be individually significant but lose their effect on the model when taken in conjunction with other variables, etc, etc. If major errors exist in their methods or assumptions, they're not errors that jumped out at me.

The major finding of this study is that you're about 1.22 times as likely to meet a grisly end in one of the most rural counties than in one of the most urban, implying that the crime-ridden inner city is actually a safer place to live than the idyllic countryside. See, even though the number of crimes and accidents is higher in urban areas, so many people live in urban areas that the death rate from such events is actually pretty low. And it's not just population math in play here: the key factor that makes rural counties so much more deadly than urban ones is the difference in the quality, number, and availability of emergency services personnel.

Entire police department at the county fair? Bad time to get in a car crash.

When you're in a city, it's true that there are more people around who might shoot you or hit you with their car. But there are also more people around to call the police when that happens, and there are generally more policemen officers and EMTs available to treat you. If you can get to a hospital soon enough, it's pretty amazing what the human body can survive. The problem is "soon enough." If you're injured in a hunting accident or you flip your car on a remote country road, you'd better hope you're well enough to contact emergency services on your own, because the lower population density of rural counties makes it less likely that you'll be spotted by a passing neighbor or police patrol in time to help you. First responders have to travel longer distances to get to you, and the closest trauma center might be an hour away. Every minute's delay increases the chances that you'll die from your untreated injuries. In the country, delays are often longer, so deaths are sadly more likely.

That's actually the main motivation for conducting this study. The writers stress that "these data support improving access to trauma centers in rural areas," and efforts to encourage new doctors to consider rural practices have long sought to alleviate the shortage of medical care that plagues so many rural counties. It's not so much that the countryside is super-duper dangerous, it's just that when you do run into danger, help is harder to come by.

London might have more stabby Santas than Sandford, but it also has more highly-trained hand surgeons.

2. "Have you ever wondered why the crime rate in Sandford is so low, yet the accident rate is so high?"

Obviously, the Sandford crime rate is a good deal higher than it appears. But in the non-fictional world, some conventional wisdom about urban living holds true: homicide rates decrease significantly with increasing rurality, meaning that murder is a less-likely cause of death out in the country than it is in the cities. You're right to be more afraid of murder in a big city than in a small town. That being said, homicide isn't the leading cause of death in this study, not by a long shot. The leading cause of death across all ages, occupations, and locations is a certain dangerous activity that we all do every day, but one that you wind up doing a lot more the further you live from the city.

Hint: It's not screaming and waving a gun (though that's still inadvisable).

To quote the study, "Motor vehicle crashes were the leading cause of injury death across the population, and the number of motor vehicle crash deaths increased sharply with increasing rurality." Driving is dangerous, and the more time you spend on the road, the higher your chances of eventually getting into a crash. People living in urban areas drive less often and for shorter distances than those living in suburban or rural communities, so their death rates from motor vehicle crashes are lower. It also helps that speed limits are typically lower in densely-populated areas than in the open country, so crashes are less often fatal. It's a boring explanation, but it makes sense: there are more accidents in the country because people drive more in the country. The risk of motor vehicle death is twice as high in rural counties as in urban ones, and it's the leading cause of accidental death just about everywhere.

Unless you live in Sandford, in which the leading cause of death is THE GREATER GOOD.

It is possible that you will see hooded figures in the Dog Park. Do not approach them. Do not approach the Dog Park.
The Dog Park will not harm you.

3. "You do know there are more guns in the country than there are in the city. Everyone and their mums is packin' round here!"

Well, this study doesn't really investigate gun ownership across rural and urban counties, but it certainly has data on gun deaths. While homicide by gun was less likely in rural counties, suicide by gun was more likely-- though only slightly, and the relationship only had statistical significance among the youngest two age groups studied. So, lonely adolescents in rural counties are more likely than their urban counterparts to shoot themselves, just in case you hadn't reached your daily recommended allowance of sadness.

When we include accidental gun deaths, we observe no significant difference in overall death rates between the most urban and most rural counties. There are some differences in the age breakdowns (urban areas see more gun deaths for the 20- to 44-year old crowd, rural areas have more gun deaths among 0- to 14-year-olds and those over 45 years), but overall, gun death isn't an exclusively urban or rural problem. And it's absolutely dwarfed by motor vehicle deaths in every age group across the rural-urban continuum.

"Why'd you have that sea mine in your barn, anyway?"
"Weddin' present."

So, if you'd like to live in the country, but you don't want to increase your risk of death, try to find a house close to an accredited trauma center, don't be a depressed teenager, and avoid driving when possible. And for the love of God, don't piss off the Neighbourhood Watch Alliance.

Safer than driving!