Datafile Name: Friday the 13th Datafile Subjects: Sociology Story Names: Friday the 13th Reference: Scanlon, T.J., Luben, R.N., Scanlon, F.L., Singleton, N. (1993), "Is Friday the 13th Bad For Your Health?," BMJ, 307, 1584-1586. Authorization: Contact authors Description: This file consists of three separate datasets, all of which address the issues of how superstitions regarding Friday the 13th affect human behavior, and whether Friday the 13th is an unlucky day. Scanlon, et al. collected data on traffic and shopping patterns and accident frequency for Fridays the 6th and 13th between October of 1989 and November of 1992. For the first dataset, the researchers obtained information from the British Department of Transport regarding the traffic flows between junctions 7 to 8 and junctions 9 to 10 of the M25 motorway. They collected the numbers of shoppers in nine different supermarkets in southeast England for the second dataset. The third dataset contains numbers of emergency admissions to hospitals due to transport accidents. We present the three datasets in a combined format, with the variable "Dataset" as an identifier that may be used to separate them. Number of cases: 61 Variable Names: 1. Dataset: Identifies source dataset (traffic, shopping, or accident) 2. Dates: year and month in which the Friday the 13th occurred 3. 6th: Number of cars passing through junction (traffic dataset), shoppers for each supermarket (shopping dataset), or admissions due to transport accidents (accident dataset) on Friday the 6th 4. 13th: Number of cars passing through junction (traffic dataset), shoppers for each supermarket (shopping dataset), or admissions due to transport accidents (accident dataset) on Friday the 13th 5. Location: Motorway junction (traffic dataset), supermarket location (shopping dataset) or hospital (accident dataset) to which the data correspond The Data: Dataset Year Mo. 6th 13th Location traffic 1990 07 139246 138548 7_to_8 traffic 1990 07 134012 132908 9_to_10 traffic 1991 09 137055 136018 7_to_8 traffic 1991 09 133732 131843 9_to_10 traffic 1991 12 123552 121641 7_to_8 traffic 1991 12 121139 118723 9_to_10 traffic 1992 03 128293 125532 7_to_8 traffic 1992 03 124631 120249 9_to_10 traffic 1992 11 124609 122770 7_to_8 traffic 1992 11 117584 117263 9_to_10 shopping 1990 07 4942 4882 Epsom shopping 1991 09 4895 4736 Epsom shopping 1991 12 4805 4784 Epsom shopping 1992 03 4570 4603 Epsom shopping 1992 11 4506 4629 Epsom shopping 1990 07 6754 6998 Guildford shopping 1991 09 6704 6707 Guildford shopping 1991 12 5871 5662 Guildford shopping 1992 03 6026 6162 Guildford shopping 1992 11 5676 5665 Guildford shopping 1990 07 3685 3848 Dorking shopping 1991 09 3799 3680 Dorking shopping 1991 12 3563 3554 Dorking shopping 1992 03 3673 3676 Dorking shopping 1992 11 3558 3613 Dorking shopping 1990 07 5751 5993 Chichester shopping 1991 09 5367 5320 Chichester shopping 1991 12 4949 4960 Chichester shopping 1992 03 5298 5467 Chichester shopping 1992 11 5199 5092 Chichester shopping 1990 07 4141 4389 Horsham shopping 1991 09 3674 3660 Horsham shopping 1991 12 3707 3822 Horsham shopping 1992 03 3633 3730 Horsham shopping 1992 11 3688 3615 Horsham shopping 1990 07 4266 4532 East_Grinstead shopping 1991 09 3954 3964 East_Grinstead shopping 1991 12 4028 3926 East_Grinstead shopping 1992 03 3689 3692 East_Grinstead shopping 1992 11 3920 3853 East_Grinstead shopping 1990 07 7138 6836 Lewisham shopping 1991 09 6568 6363 Lewisham shopping 1991 12 6514 6555 Lewisham shopping 1992 03 6115 6412 Lewisham shopping 1992 11 5325 6099 Lewisham shopping 1990 07 6502 6648 Nine_Elms shopping 1991 09 6416 6398 Nine_Elms shopping 1991 12 6422 6503 Nine_Elms shopping 1992 03 6748 6716 Nine_Elms shopping 1992 11 7023 7057 Nine_Elms shopping 1990 07 4083 4277 Crystal_Palace shopping 1991 09 4107 4334 Crystal_Palace shopping 1991 12 4168 4050 Crystal_Palace shopping 1992 03 4174 4198 Crystal_Palace shopping 1992 11 4079 4105 Crystal_Palace accident 1989 10 9 13 SWTRHA_hospital accident 1990 07 6 12 SWTRHA_hospital accident 1991 09 11 14 SWTRHA_hospital accident 1991 12 11 10 SWTRHA_hospital accident 1992 03 3 4 SWTRHA_hospital accident 1992 11 5 12 SWTRHA_hospital downloaded March 22 1997 by jh from: http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/