Are you superstitious about Friday 13th? If you are, you’re not alone. In a survey for Guardian Money by the website Topcashback.co.uk, one in five admitted they were. The phobia has its own name: paraskevidekatriaphobia.*
We wondered if people were right to worry, how it affected their behaviour – and what opportunities there might be for those who see it as just another day.
Getting married
Almost a quarter of respondents (22%) to our survey would avoid proposing on Friday 13th, and nearly a third (31%) said they would avoid getting married. Wedding website hitched.co.uk collects data on when its members are tying the knot and says 48% fewer couples are getting married on Friday 13 March 2015 compared to Friday 20 March.
Similarly, Lee Graham, founder of findaweddingphotographer.co.uk, says only one person has requested a Friday 13th quote from his 7,000 photographers this year.
This can mean good availability, and special offers, for those who are willing to take the plunge.
Wedding venue House for an Art Lover in Glasgow is offering a 13% discount on some of its Friday 13th wedding prices, as is Whirlowbrook Hall near Sheffield and nationwide wedding photographer Kerry Bartlett. The Highdown Hotel in Worthing, meanwhile, has cut 50% off its wedding package on any Friday 13th in 2015 or 2016.
However, wedding providers advertising such discounts are rare – so negotiating a lower price for a last-minute booking on Friday 13th may be a better strategy.
A search on hitched.co.uk earlier this week revealed at least five venues were advertising last-minute availability on this Friday 13th, with several offering special discounts for late bookings.
Flying
Price comparison website jetcost.co.uk has found that flight bookings for a Friday 13thare sometimes down as much as 27% on the seven previous days.
Yet according to statistics from the Aviation Safety Network (ASN), a database of worldwide aircraft accidents, there are fewer fatal accidents on Friday 13th. It analysed the number of fatal accidents on passenger flights between 1945 and 2013, and found that an average of 0.091 fatal accidents happen every day.
During the 118 Friday 13ths in this period, the ASN said just eight fatal airliner accidents occurred – an average of 0.067 per day.
This is despite the fact that Friday is not usually a safer day to fly than any other day of the week (according to the statistics, Sunday is markedly safer).
The seeming reluctance of people to travel can mean cheaper tickets. Flight aggregator Kayak says Friday 13th June 2014 was the cheapest day to fly that month, with prices 29% lower on this day than on other days in June. However, earlier this week, the cost of flying on Friday 13th November 2015 (from Manchester or London to New York or Paris) was either the same or more expensive than flying a week earlier or later.
Investing
The precious metals marketplace, BullionVault.com, analysed how its 55,000 users behaved on the last three Friday 13ths. It says the number of deals to buy and sell gold on Friday 13th fell by 39% compared to the daily averages of each week either side, and the total quantity of gold bullion changing hands was 43% lower than average.
“For all their talk of skill and just rewards, many City traders also have their little rituals and charms, and the more superstitious will refuse to put on a new trade on Friday 13th if they can possibly help it,” says spokesman Adrian Ash.
When it comes to share prices: “Although it would be intuitive to expect that the stock market would perform poorly on Friday 13th, the returns should be actually better on that day – because if you are afraid that something will happen on Friday 13th, it makes sense to sell everything on Thursday 12th,” says Jarkko Peltomaki, associate professor of finance at Stockholm Business School. “However, on Friday 13th, the stock market could actually perform better than normal because superstitious investors get relieved at the end of the day.”
In his academic paper on the “Friday 13th effect” on the stock market, Peltomaki found evidence for poor stock market performance on Thursday 12th, he says, but saw the effect “disappear” after 1980: “The relevance of Friday 13th in investing has been fading away because of automated trading and the use of computers.” The impact of the superstition, he suggests, will be “a drop in the ocean” compared to everything else that affects share prices nowadays.
Buying a house
In a survey of 2,017 people by comparison site, gocompare.com, 14% said that they would not buy a house or flat if it was number 13 and 11% would try to avoid all association with the number 13.
This “triskaidekaphobia” or fear of the number 13 (which first appeared as a phenomenon in the early 1900s) extends to property purchases on Friday 13th. One in five adults would avoid exchanging on a new home on Friday 13th, according to our survey.
Nyree Applegarth, a partner at Higgs & Sons solicitors near Birmingham, says she’s experienced this. Given the choice, she says, roughly 80% of her firm’s clients would prefer not to complete a business or house sale/purchase just because it falls on Friday 13th. Those who are willing to do so, however, have nothing to fear: “It usually turns out to be a completion date like any other.”
For those not put off, there is the potential to grab a last-minute slot. Clockwork Removals says its teams regularly come across customers who change their moving date at the last minute once they realise they are moving on the 13th, and Bishop’s Move has also experienced unusually low bookings on Friday 13th this year. Driving
In 2008, the Dutch Centre for Insurance Statistics reported that, statistically, Friday 13th is a safer day to drive than a standard Friday. It found that Dutch insurers typically receive reports of 7,800 traffic accidents every Friday, but just 7,500 traffic accidents, on average, when the 13th fell on a Friday.
However in 2014, Aviva analysed 10 years of its claims data and found that motor collision claims increase by an average of – wait for it – 13% on Friday 13th, compared to other days in the same month.
“The high number of road accidents on Friday 13th that some studies highlight may be explained by superstitious driver anxiety, while lower accident numbers given in contrasting studies may be due to deliberate avoidance of driving on that date,” says Dr Claire Thompson, a psychologist at Nottingham Trent University.
Going out
One in 10 people would avoid attempting to organise a romantic date or giving someone a “big surprise” on Friday 13th, according to our survey. So it may turn out to be easier than usual to get a table at a restaurant on Friday 13th. Restaurant booking website Opentable reports that it suffered a 9% drop in reservations on each Friday 13th in 2014, compared to the average Friday. (If you do go out, don’t bother looking for table 13, as only two out of the UK’s top 14 restaurants have one.)
Finally, more than a third of the people in our survey said they didn’t think it would be worth buying a lottery ticket on Friday 13th. If fewer people do buy tickets, then statistically, you’ll be more likely to win a bigger prize if you buy a ticket this week. Of course, that doesn’t mean you are any more likely to actually win anything. Good luck …
* It’s also known as friggatriskaidekaphobia, if you find paraskevidekatriaphobia a bit too easy to pronounce
