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



Gary wrote:
nimbusgb wrote:

I spent 30 years in South Africa, this Easter long weekend will have
cost between 1500 and 2000 lives on the road down there. I still lost
more people in 'hobbies' than road accidents in all the time I was
there and that includes the 2 that I lost to armed car hijacks.

The thing to remember is that a car wreck is infrequently fatal and
quite often little more than mentally traumatic. Aircraft crashes,
scuba accidents, man overboard and freefall parachute failures tend to
be a little less forgiving than the padded, belted, ABS, ESP and crush
zone protected vehicles that we drive.

I dont want this thread to get out of hand, I am not some super safety
concious nutter. I honestly think that the health and safety regs in
the UK are right over the top and that people should accept more
responsibility for their own lives.

I do believe that you have to either '**** or get off the pot'. How can
you call something an 'extreme' sport and then say that its safer than
driving! Exteme is 'out of the ordinary' and driving is what millions
of 'ordinary' people do every day.

Extreme sports are a marketing ploy. The label "Extreme" sells. Extreme
sports are not neccesarily extreme because of the risk but frequently
because of the effort and level of difficulty. Think ultra marathons,
extreme fighting, the Tour de France, or the Vendee Globe. On the other
hand, anything can be "extreme" if you take great uncalculated risks,
including driving. Those guys never live long and frequently don't win
at what ever they are doing.

I agree that the biggest risk most people take every day is driving. I
have lots of friends who have been injured and some killed involving
cars. On the other hand, I have had none killed in the pursuit of
sports yet. Sometimes they get a little banged up but "bones heal and
chicks love scars". Dying playing a sport is stupid. Of course I hang
with sensible, intelligent folks. Can't say the same for them though.

Gary
Still skiing, climbing, sailing, kayaking, yadda yadda yadda..... at an
extreme age!