“Over 2500 left handed people a year are killed from using products made for right handed people” – According to a lot of websites (copy it into Google to see them all).

This is a little snippet that has done the rounds on lots of “useless facts” type websites and has recently been appearing in some “forward me” emails. We have never seen a proper source for this “fact” so if anyone knows one please add it as a comment below. Once generated on a list somewhere this type of content seems to proliferate around the web with nobody ever actually checking if it is real. The same thing happens with lists of famous lefthanders (or not!)

I guess that at least 10 times as many right-handers are also killed using “right-handed products” so it is pretty meaningless really.

There was some research published by Stanley Coren a long while back that reported left-handers being more prone to accidents and as a result dying on average younger than right-handers but we are pretty sure that if that was really the case the life assurance and pensions companies would have picked up on it and tried to charge differential rates for lefthanders.

We do have a lot of anecdotal evidence that machinery and equipment is nearly always designed for right-handers and in some cases actually dangerous to use left-handed – circular saws and chainsaws are two good examples and a lot of factory machinery with safety guards and cutout switches positioned for right handed use of the equipment.

What do you think? Are us left-handers being wiped out by using right-handed equipment?