One in 20 people won’t even leave house this Friday the 13th

Team Udayavani, Jan 12, 2017, 9:56 AM IST

One in 20 of us is so superstitious they say they will not leave the house this Friday the 13th – to minimise the risk of bad luck.

A survey found 80% of Brits consider they are superstitious , with many having rituals.

Most common superstition is lucky socks, worn by 36%, followed by touching wood and lucky pants both at 35%. A lucky coin wards off bad luck for 23% and 22% said they keep fingers and toes crossed.

Claire Taylor, 31, of Hastings, East Sussex, called herself “very superstitious” and plans a duvet day following the last Friday 13, last May, when she crashed driving back from the shops then dropped a bag and “two wine bottles smashed all over my kitchen floor”.

A poll of 2,000 Brits found that 100 of those polled – five per cent, or one-in-20 – said they planned on staying at home all day to keep the risk of being hit by bad luck down to a minimum.

Taken as a whole of the UK’s 60 million adults, that means around 3 million people are not planning to venture outside this Friday.

Several of those quizzed said they had even booked the day off work on holiday to avoid having to leave the security of their own home.

The fear of Friday 13th stretches back to the story of Easter, when Jesus and the disciples sat 13 to a table for the Last Supper.

Since Victorian times, a belief in bad luck on this ominous date has grown and research published in 1993 by the British Medical Journal found that there is actually an increase in road accidents on Friday 13th.