A happy new year it isn’t for friends and family of Canadians who were killed suddenly in the waning days of 2011. A couple of high-profile avalanche deaths in British Columbia on Dec. 29 and Dec. 30, in particular, grabbed national headlines, as these types of fatalities tend to do. There were, however, many more families whose lives were forever altered by the unexpected death of a loved one, including the family of the 43-year-old man from Edmonton who was killed in a car crash just east of Jasper on Dec. 30.

Accidents of various kinds claim thousands of lives each year in Canada but we tend to focus our attention disproportionately on those which are the least deadly.

One of the brightest of spotlights shines on avalanche deaths, even though there are only about 15 of them each year, on average, across the entire country. Drownings, by contrast, claim between 250 and 300 Canadian lives each year but those types of accidents usually only make local headlines, not national news.

This is to be expected, to some extent, since unusual events are, by definition, more newsworthy than common occurrences. If broad public attention was drawn to every single drowning in Canada, there would be little room in the national discourse to talk about much else. The same is true for car crashes and other types of transportation accidents, which kill in the neighbourhood of 3,000 Canadians annually. We hear about them all the time but only the most deadly or bizarre of vehicular accidents make the national news.

This is the nature of journalism and, more broadly, the nature of human curiosity. Our attention is innately drawn towards novelty. This tendency is what leads us to discover new things but it can also skew our perception of reality, in particular when it comes to risk.

Most Canadians, for example, would never dare to venture onto a backcountry slope for fear of being buried in an avalanche. Many of these same people, however, don’t think twice about their daily commute in traffic which, in reality, presents a much higher risk of death or serious injury.

Part of this is due to the fact that backcountry skiing is considered a voluntary risk while driving to and from work is thought of as a necessary risk. It’s easier to justify taking your life in your hands in order to make a living than in order to have a good time. But the reality of the relative risk remains.

Consider some other risky activities, such as walking down the sidewalk, taking a shower, or descending a staircase. Those things might not seem particularly dangerous to most people, but accidental falls are more deadly to Canadians than car crashes.

A total of 3,098 people died in 2008 from various types of falls, according to the most recent data from Statistics Canada, compared to 2,848 who died in transport accidents. The risk of fatal falls also increases significantly with age, so it’s not surprisingly that these types of deaths are on the rise, given Canada’s aging population. The number of fatal falls increased each year from 2005 to 2008, while the number of transport fatalities declined each year during the same period.

The point is, despite the more unusual types of accidents that grab headlines and public attention, it’s the more mundane, everyday types of accidents that claim far more lives. In order to reduce the devastating impact of these accidents on Canadians’ lives, it’s important to be aware that some of the biggest risks lie right under our noses and simple precautions like winter tires on a vehicle or a handrail on a staircase can literally save lives.

So here’s to a safer 2012, from the ski slopes to the sidewalks to the shower stalls across Canada.