Ric,

For what it is worth, I agree with you.

Cars are scary because you have to rely on others. In the US most of
those "others" have no more "training" than I do, which is to say none.
Diving, on the other hand, involves substantial training and I am
usually diving with someone with a similar level of training.

One can argue the basis for establishing safety "statistics".
Commercial airflight is far safer than cars right? But those statistics
are based on a "per mile" basis. When viewed on a per trip basis cars
and airplanes are much closer together. Pick your stat to make your
point, each is valid in its own right. But neither is "better" or
"righter" than the other.

Perhaps one should view safety from a different basis, based upon a risk
/reward assignment - r/r. Once upon a time I drove for fun, no more, it
scares me and is boring. My reward is zero so my r/r = infinite.

If I scuba dive my risk if finite and get great reward so my r/r =
acceptable.

Ditto sailing. Ditto hunting.

I tried skiing. At my advanced age (50+)the risk of debilitating damage
is greater than I care to take. So I don't do it, my r/r is to high.

This is subjective, but so are all of life's value judgments.

If you love driving, have at it.

Howard



Ric wrote:
"nimbusgb" wrote in message
oups.com...
The most dangerous part of any "dangerous sport", whether sailing,
scuba-diving, climbing etc, is driving in your car to get there....
major_rant

At the risk of being 'kill filed' by many .........

I have to take issue with this, it's the dumbest, most ill informed
stupid statement anyone could use in connection with any even partially
'extreme' sport.

In my nearly 50 years I am thankful that I can count the number of
friends, colleagues, relatives and aquaintances killed in motor
accidents on the fingers of my hands. Sure a few have spent periods
recuperating from severe injury and I dodged the bullet once or twice
in my youth including having driven into a moving train at high speed.
I walked away! The same cannot be said of the sports I have
participated in, I have, on average known at least one person for each
of my nearly 50 years that has been killed whilst participating in a
'hobby'.

Gliding, Power flying, Sailing and a few other assorted sports I dont
participate in have all claimed an uncomfortable number from those I
have known. Their skill levels at their chosen pastime ranged from
novice to vastly experienced, like the pilot with over 20000 hours of
gliding time. These people 'participated' for only a couple of hours on
the weekends whilst they spent many, many times that in their cars. In
my 1000 plus hours of gliding I have had at least 3 'close calls' with
the grim reaper and I have been present and witnessesed several
untimely deaths. I spend about 500 hours a year in my car and I can
honestly say ( touch wood ) that in spite of having an extremely heavy
foot I have not had a serious scare in the past 10 years and possibly
200 000 miles of motoring.

Well I lead an adventurous life as a sprog in the army, still regularly
freefall parachute, fly planes, sail my boat, go solo scuba-diving, go solo
ski-touring, - but to me my most dangerous perceived activity is driving my
car - because I have to rely on the competence of others, whereas in
individual adventure sports I rely only on myself. I have far more scary
moments driving on a motorway due to totally incompetent manouvres by idiots
than I ever have sailing/climbing/parachuting/sailing where I can rely
entirely on my own preparation and planning.