Did you know that every year 300 of us will die due to a fatal accident in the work place? How about that 400 of us die every year from domestic house fires, over half of which could have been prevented through use of a smoke alarm? What about the fact that almost 3,000 people die as a result of car accidents that at least a third could have been prevented by simply abiding by the law?

Perhaps most shocking of all, and I come to this subject cautiously given media (tabloid) involvement in it in the past, is that over 2,700 children under the age of 13 are raped every year and this figure is rising. Whether it's rising because (thankfully) reporting these crimes is becoming more common or because it's happening more is fairly inconsequential to the fact the problem is becoming more apparent.

The trouble with all the above stories, when compared to the 250ish people that die every year from knife crime (and have done for a decade at least), is that surely they don't sell papers nor encourage people to tune in to the headlines. On Monday Radio 1's newsbeat had a "half hour" special on knife crime because of this "problem" that has not largely increased or decreased in any length of time. Meanwhile real problems killing more people every year are being ignored, seemingly because they're not sexy enough stories of death and destruction.

Even in Cameron's hypocritical age of telling people to take account of their own impact on their problems, how likely would the papers be to so constantly remind parents that they are likely to be the offender in at least half of the 8 cases of pre-teenage rape in the UK every day? I guess it doesn't really conjur witty and striking headlines as much as those that sprung up around the Soham murders, or indeed the recent Madeline McCann abduction.

But this is unfortunately it, the papers would far rather report about something that they can create a mood and an anxiousness over, to keep people paying for "the next instalment. Knife crime is perfect in that respect as pretty much everyone realises that they aren't actually in any danger, but love to lament over their weetabix about the decay of society portrayed in the headlines. Start plugging people with the notion that you should be ten times more concerned about someone in your family ruining your child's life and suddenly people might start to get defensive, dismissive and ultimately not want to hear the much more subtle truth of dangers to our young in the UK.

But I guess, when it comes down to it, we should be at least happy that over 300 of us every year aren't killed by lightning...not that the papers would make much of that either unless lightning suddenly started wearing hoodies and wielding pistols. Wouldn't that make a lovely silly season story?