Many discussions on these fora hinge around how safe, or unsafe,
some activity or process is. Very often two points of view emerge;
one based on a personal experience, and the other based on reports
of incidents. These discussions sometimes descend into personal
attacks - if you can't win the argument, question your opponent's
integrity, intelligence, skill, whatever.

You can't argue with the emotional impact that a personal
experience creates. For that person it's a fact, an event of high
probability. The population as a whole has to stand back and
accept this - then look dispassionately at the stats.

There is a useful tool in UK to help get a perspective on safety
matters - that's the record of accidents kept from 1979 until 2002
in UK at a group of major hospitals, then extended to national
probabilities. I'm sure there are more sources, just as good or
better. But the UK 2002 report is at:

http://www.hassandlass.org.uk/query/...s/2002data.pdf

Before you load it, bear in mind it's about 70 pages of pdf -
that's killerbites if you're tied to 56k modem. In that case you
may choose to play around in the RoSPA web site to access the
databases directly (Google it).
The data link thousands of equipments with hospitalising injuries
in 2002. Examples:

Sailboard (all) - 472
Water Scooter - 185 (well , it was 2002)
Oars and Rowlocks - 103
Mast, sail and rig - 267
All types of boats - 2,932
Quad bikes, ATVs - 4,346

And to put this in perspective, these are part of a total of about
5,500,000 hospitalising accidents a year. So, 1/10 of us can
expect a hospitalising accident each year.

Now, what this doesn't do is say how many people participated how
much in the various activities. Otherwise you'd determine that the
least safe thing to do is to wear a shoe (linked to hundreds of
thousands of injuries). Nor does it say what might have happened
if you didn't use that particular item. I mean, if I didn't sail,
would I be rushing off on my PWC for some thrills instead?

In UK I suppose 50,000,000 wear shoes 50% of their lives, whilst
3,000,000 people spend 5% of their time on boats. So, 1/1,000
boaters suffer an injury each year (and that injury occurs during
a two week/336 hour window for most). So, there's only a 1/100
chance that my hospitalising injury will be due to boating.

Now, Martin is very good at digging out relevant websites, so
he'll probably find a site which does all this tedious calculating
for us. But in a few days I'm off to Greece to continue my search
for off-beat bars and restaurants. Sadly I won't be able to reap
all the benefit of his research - just the next few days worth!

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

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

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

I always reminded myself of that as I was in my car on the way to Langar or
Netheravon to go skydiving, but found that sailing gave a different feeling,
and for much longer than a 50 second freefall.

Having decided to stick with sailing (Read as: allocate my disposable income
to sailing, not skydiving) I revel in the fact that no-one MAKES me wear my
lifejacket, etc.

Whatever, it is worth the risk and money to lurch beerily around the Solent,
even if I do have to take my life into my hands everytime I want to get to
the sailing club!

Artie

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.

The risks of participation in any extreme sport are not insignificant
and anyone who quotes the above statement to someone new to such a
sport could well be exposing themselves to future litigation. At the
very least they are doing their sport a disservice.

Each of us has a moving threshold for 'adventurism', adrenaline, risk
or whatever you call it. Your risk tolerance is probably at its maximum
when at 18 you aquire your first car, its at the opposite end of the
scale when you have just watched your first born take his or her first
breaths. Everyone must balance their own current risk profile and it is
unfair to fob anyone off with this lame statement.

Dont ever try to fool anyone that your pastime is safer than driving.
Be honest about the risks but explain how you balance the risks through
a degree of legislation ( like the colregs ), education, practice,
process and how the really intelligent few welcome and even invite
constructive criticism.

When someone questions your participation in the face of the risks you
have outlined you simply explain, to paraphrase, 'you don't do it to
escape life, you do it to make sure life doesn't escape you.'

\major_rant

Ian

"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.
snip long rant

Surely anything can be dangerous if you do it stupidly enough? What's the
point in getting steamed up about it?

Not steamed, just an opinion!

"nimbusgb" wrote in message

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.

Naughty. You're (indirectly) attacking the writer, not his
arguments

In my nearly 50 years I am thankful that I can count the number
of
friends, colleagues, relatives and aquaintances killed in motor

snip

Gliding, Power flying, Sailing and a few other assorted sports I
dont
participate in have all claimed an uncomfortable number from
those I

big snip

These are your personal experiences and knowledge. They have
formed your views, which have probably been hardened over the
years. But stop and think a bit . . .

Data is available to check whether your views are valid for the
population as a whole. I've shown one source - in UK.

But if Ric was a resident in Greece, where road accident rates are
some 20 times worse than in UK per car/kilometre, perhaps he's
entitled to that view? (I don't know the US relative rates).
--
JimB
http://www.jimbaerselman.f2s.com/
Describing some Greek and Spanish cruising areas

"News f2s" wrote in message
...

"nimbusgb" wrote in message

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.

Naughty. You're (indirectly) attacking the writer, not his arguments

In my nearly 50 years I am thankful that I can count the number of
friends, colleagues, relatives and aquaintances killed in motor

snip

Gliding, Power flying, Sailing and a few other assorted sports I dont
participate in have all claimed an uncomfortable number from those I

big snip

These are your personal experiences and knowledge. They have formed your
views, which have probably been hardened over the years. But stop and
think a bit . . .

Data is available to check whether your views are valid for the population
as a whole. I've shown one source - in UK.

But if Ric was a resident in Greece, where road accident rates are some 20
times worse than in UK per car/kilometre, perhaps he's entitled to that
view? (I don't know the US relative rates).
--
JimB
http://www.jimbaerselman.f2s.com/
Describing some Greek and Spanish cruising areas

There is data also which show that more people die in bed than anywhere
else. Surely they should carry a warning? As should hospitals, where lots of
people die.

"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.

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.