Ethnicity as a factor in pizza delivery crashes

A subjective assessment of patients admitted acutely to the orthopedic directorate revealed that there had been--over a short period of time--a small series of patients who had sustained fractures during the course of their employment as pizza delivery moped drivers. Consequently an observational study was performed in our district general hospital in order to investigate this further, and establish the demographic domain of the patients involved and the cost of their injuries. Our hospital has a patient catchment area of 350,000 and an emergency department that treats 95,000 patients annually. The patients in this series were described in terms of their injuries, ethnicity, and cost of injury treatment. The main findings were that pizza delivery personnel admitted acutely were male Afghans, with poor English language skills, who sustained significant fractures in moped accidents that were expensive to treat.