"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.

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.

In article ,
says...
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.

Not actually true though if you think about it.

Climbing, and alpine climbing in particular, you can be killed just by
being in the wrong place/wrong time. Serac collapse and rockfall are the
main causes. Climbers have a term for this: "objective risk". It means
if you choose to do this particular route, you can do everything right
and still come to grief.

Not true of Nimbus's sport either (mine also at one time). There are
glider pilots who have been knocked out of the sky by other aircraft,
typically other gliders in crowded thermals. Wrong place, wrong time. I
even know a glider pilot who was struck by lightening.

Sailing.....maybe less of a case to make, but a friend of a friend was
drowned when out in F9 when the maximum breeze forecast was F6. Wrong
place, wrong time.

At an order of magnitude driving and climbing involve something around a
1 in 10,000 annual risk of being killed. Alpine climbing is a lot higher
(back to "objective risk") as is gliding. Sailing is lower. Climbing and
sailing don't have reliable participation figures so precise figures
aren't obtainable.

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


A curious statement - it almost seems reasonable. How does it apply
to boating in general?

There are about 180 million cars in the US, and 12 million registered
boats, so the ratio is 15 to one. The number of boating fatalities is
around 700, but this doesn't include drowning while swimming off a
boat which is a substantial factor, so I will exercise some
prerogative and call it an even 1000 deaths. There are 30000 auto
related deaths, so that ratio is 30 to one.

Thus, when counted by registered vehicles, auto fatalities are twice
as frequent. However, the story gets muddied by the fact that human
powered boats (canoes, kayaks, rowboats) are not registered in most
situations, yet are involved in a substantial number of fatalities.
This tends to make boating seem even safer, vehicle by vehicle.

The bottom line is that if you have a car and a boat, you're more
likely to die in the car. However, if you consider that most boaters
only use a small portion of their driving time going to their boat, I
would guess that on a given "boating day" the boating portion is more
dangerous.

There is a whole other side to this, however. Those of us with larger
sailboats know that our boats are far, far safer than the small boats
that seem to cause all the problems. For example, we have stays to
hang onto when we pee overboard! Does this hold up? Auxiliary
sailboats make up about 1.2% of the fleet, but were involved in only
1.2% of the fatalities. Hmmm. OK, well at least larger boats must
safer: 4.6% of the registered fleet is over 26 feet, and 5% of the
fatalities involved boats over 26 feet. Hmmm.

One thing is clear when looking at the statistics: most deaths occur
from "stupid" behavior. "Overall, carelessness/reckless operation,
operator inattention, operator inexperience, and excessive speed are
the leading contributing factors of all reported accidents."

http://www.uscgboating.org/statistic...stics_2004.pdf

In article , says...

There are about 180 million cars in the US, and 12 million registered
boats, so the ratio is 15 to one. The number of boating fatalities is
around 700, but this doesn't include drowning while swimming off a
boat which is a substantial factor, so I will exercise some
prerogative and call it an even 1000 deaths. There are 30000 auto
related deaths, so that ratio is 30 to one.


Both those accident rates are higher than the UK, whose population is
around 25% of the USA. Boating deaths appear vastly higher in the USA. I
wonder why?

UK road deaths around 3200 in 2005 with 30M registered cars.

Boat-related deaths:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/group.../page/dft_foi_
610522.pdf shows numbers reported to the Marine Accident Investigation
Board. Incidents involving deaths, maybe half a dozen a year.

http://www.rospa.com/waterandleisure...atersafety.htm
lists 22 boating drownings in the UK in 2004.

There is no legal requirement to register small craft in the UK so
nobody knows how many there are. Also certainly several million.

Both those accident rates are higher than the UK, whose
population is
around 25% of the USA. Boating deaths appear vastly higher in
the USA. I
wonder why?

Nice to see a rational approach!

Partly, US has a far more rigorous reporting system. Nearly half
boat deaths occur in small rowboats and motorised fishing boats
pottering around without lifejackets. These don't interest the
MAIB. Additionally, UK appears to have more sail and auxiliary
sail boats active compared to these small vessels. In US the
safety of these sail vessels is *much* higher - so that could be
an equaliser.

Your RoSPA data included only drownings in UK. Dig into their
leisure industry reports (LASS) and you'll find they report
typically 5,000 to 6,000 injuries over about 11 categories of
vessel (which is confusing!). However, the likely ratio of
injury/death will be around 1/5 (the US boating rate) to 1/10 (US
and UK car rate). This implies around 500 to 600 deaths from
boating in UK per year. I know - heroic assumption!

UK road deaths around 3200 in 2005 with 30M registered cars.

Boat-related deaths:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/group.../page/dft_foi_
610522.pdf shows numbers reported to the Marine Accident
Investigation
Board. Incidents involving deaths, maybe half a dozen a year.

http://www.rospa.com/waterandleisure...atersafety.htm
lists 22 boating drownings in the UK in 2004.

There is no legal requirement to register small craft in the UK
so
nobody knows how many there are. Also certainly several million.

Estimates from consumer market surveys around 1995 put the numbers
of people who regard themselves as participating regularly in
sailing activites around 3,000,000. Not a very useful stat, but
it's the best I've got!

--
JimB
http://www.jimbaerselman.f2s.com/
Describing some Greek and Spanish cruising areas

Stefan wrote:
In article , says...

There are about 180 million cars in the US, and 12 million registered
boats, so the ratio is 15 to one. The number of boating fatalities is
around 700, but this doesn't include drowning while swimming off a
boat which is a substantial factor, so I will exercise some
prerogative and call it an even 1000 deaths. There are 30000 auto
related deaths, so that ratio is 30 to one.



Both those accident rates are higher than the UK, whose population is
around 25% of the USA. Boating deaths appear vastly higher in the USA. I
wonder why?
There were a substantial number of drownings in UK rivers and streams;
I wonder if this is just a difference in the way they get reported.

Certainly there is no place in the UK like Florida, which has 50% more
boats per capita than New England, itself considered a major boating
area.

BTW, every time I try to show that one area or one type of boat is
more dangerous, I find that it always seems to even out. This has led
me to think people act responsibly up to a certain level of perceived
safety. In other words, until someone you know has been a victim, you
don't think it will happen to you.


UK road deaths around 3200 in 2005 with 30M registered cars.
That's about a ninth of the fatalities with a sixth of the cars. The
average car in the US does about 11,000 miles a year (I think). How
does that compare?


Boat-related deaths:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/group.../page/dft_foi_
610522.pdf shows numbers reported to the Marine Accident Investigation
Board. Incidents involving deaths, maybe half a dozen a year.

This report does not include privately owned recreational vessels:
"The MAIB welcomes the voluntary reporting of accidents to or on
pleasure craft used only for recreation purposes and not for
commercial gain, but there is no statutory requirement for this."


http://www.rospa.com/waterandleisure...atersafety.htm
lists 22 boating drownings in the UK in 2004.

There is no legal requirement to register small craft in the UK so
nobody knows how many there are. Also certainly several million.

Is that true for small powerboats? A 25 foot runabout with a big
outboard needs no registration?

In article ,
says...


UK road deaths around 3200 in 2005 with 30M registered cars.
That's about a ninth of the fatalities with a sixth of the cars. The
average car in the US does about 11,000 miles a year (I think). How
does that compare?


Similar. From memory the UK average is around 9,000 miles.


Boat-related deaths:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/group.../page/dft_foi_
610522.pdf shows numbers reported to the Marine Accident Investigation
Board. Incidents involving deaths, maybe half a dozen a year.

This report does not include privately owned recreational vessels:
"The MAIB welcomes the voluntary reporting of accidents to or on
pleasure craft used only for recreation purposes and not for
commercial gain, but there is no statutory requirement for this."

The MAIB does in fact investigate accidents for privately owned
recreational vessels. Several such reports have been discussed here
recently.

There is no legal requirement to register small craft in the UK so
nobody knows how many there are. Also certainly several million.

Is that true for small powerboats? A 25 foot runabout with a big
outboard needs no registration?

Correct.

How does the "recreational mind set" modify or accentuate stupid
behavior and is such behavior encouraged by the promotion of the
activity? Good point though that seems to apply almost universally
inall activity. Knowing that, auto manufacturers have designed cars to
anticipate 'some" stupid behaviors.

RT

Very glad to see the safety discussion. Most informative. I am very
involved in the US effort to require that all exposed propellers on
boats are guarded. We can use your assistance and input. If you have
never seen the results of someone that has been involved with a
rotating propeller, there are only two other forms of injury that
equals the devastation to the human body being struck at 180 hits per
second at an idle RPM and that is a full body burn or a significant
hostile combat injury. Please join in the discussion whether you agree
or disagree.The site is Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient
Recreational (SAFER) Boating. We just opened for discussion. I am sure
there is much to say pro and con on the exposed propeller injury, pro
and con.
RT