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Good Question: What Are The Most Dangerous Jobs?

By Jason DeRusha, WCCO-TV

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- When a taxi driver in Minneapolis got carjacked Thursday, it got us thinking about dangerous jobs. So, what are the most dangerous jobs in the United States?

Taxi driving is often in the top 10 list, because of the combination of job deaths due to traffic crashes and homicide. Taxi drivers are 20 times more likely than the average worker to be murdered on the job, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics most recent data from 2009, the most deadly job in the U.S. is fishing, which is 60 times more deadly than the average job.

That's followed by logging, airplane pilots (mainly single-engine and private plane pilots), farmers, and roofers. Iron and Steel workers, garbage collectors, machine repair workers, truck drivers, sales workers and construction laborers round out the list.

According to Department of Labor report,more construction workers died on the job in 2009 than any other sector.

In Minnesota, the top two ways of dying at work are having something fall on you, or you falling.

From 2003 to 2009, there were 514 on-the-job fatalities in Minnesota. Fifty-eight died after being struck by a falling object, 57 died by falling and 49 died when there was a collision between vehicles, a car crash.

Nationally, homicide is always a big cause of on-the-job deaths. However, in Minnesota, assaults and violent acts by people only accounted for 6 percent of the on-the-job deaths.

The largest category in Minnesota is transportation accidents: 38 percent are from highway accidents, pedestrian accidents, and rail/air/water accidents.

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