AMPowers wrote:
Gary,

I think an excellent book on this subject is "Deep Survival". It
discusses "who lives, who dies, and why" in regards to "extreme sports.
The arguments made in it are quite interesting and apply to this topic.

It seems that generally what kills people, more often than not, is poor
decision making, inadequate training/skill and improper preparation. All
of those qualities are just as applicable to driving as to sports.

I don't think the argument can be made "objectively" that driving is any
more or less dangerous than anything else unless you are willing to
theorize an individual who's training/skill, preparation and decision
making skills are objectively equal for each endeavor. Then comparing
that individual in each activity would make sense. The problem with
this is that measuring such things is almost always impossible.

Instead, people resort to statistics of entire populations. For
instance, mortality rates of bowling are significantly higher than
scuba. Why? Because more people who bowl are at greater risk of heart
attack and stroke. The sport itself is not really more dangerous, just
the population practicing it.

When one tends to look at the statistical averages, one ignores the
population's (and consequently the individual's) training/skill,
preparation and decision making abilities I think this isn't really a
"fair" comparison, but it does at least give you some relative sense of
the danger in terms of the population, which is what insurance agencies
(the folks who compile this information) really care about.

While I do believe that any activity has some danger (including driving)
I think more often than not the real level can not be truly,
scientifically determined for the individual. So, while boating may be
dangerous, whether it is more so than driving really comes down to who
is doing it at the time.

Robb

Good point, well articulated. I'll look for the book.

Gary