The111 0 #51 November 5, 2003 QuoteQuoteKid yourself if you will, but what we do is no game. was directed at those people who have a couple of years and a couple of hundred jumps who have not yet seen their peers ripped limb from limb in their pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately that does include me. Just replace "couple of years" with "less than a year" and "couple of hundred" with "less than a hundred". And no, I haven't seen it yet. And while it won't take me by surprise when it does happen (I try to delude myself as little as possible, I know what the chances are), I still like to hope that maybe, just maybe, I won't have to deal with that. I don't think this is a bad viewpoint to have. Hope is different than expectancy. I very much expect to encounter many tragedies (possibly including my own) in this sport since I plan to stick with it for a very long time and understand and accept the risk. But I sure hope I don't. And I like to think that hope (without loss of respect for my own mortality) will keep me making wise choices.www.WingsuitPhotos.com Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zoter 0 #52 November 5, 2003 I'm not entirely sure the stats count anyways..... You are comparing 'skydiving' as an activity versus 'driving' as an activity. I would respectfully say that the majority of skydivers , purely through the risks of not getting it right, invest a significant amount of time ensuring Emergency procedures are current, that they invest in training for more difficult disciplines and manouvres, that the equipment they use is safe and checked beyond that which is 'formally' required, and are alot more concious of the enviroment they are in and the people they are around. Can you say the same of the 'majority' of drivers? If you want to compare the two....your average skydiver (comparing to your average driver ) is someone who does not invest in any more training after student status, gets his kit serviced once a year or if it' breaks' and is only formally required to pass a total kit check 'once' every year ! Hmmm....something to think about ! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 1,623 #53 November 6, 2003 Quote Driving fatalities per 100,000 licensed drivers 22.06 (2001 statistics used) Driving fatalities per 100,000 population 14.86. Skydiving fatalities on average, don't even come close to this. 2,000,000 jumps in any given year with general fatalities falling under 30 per year. If you exclude the fatalities which arise from skydivers killed in a plane going in, the fatality rate is lower. Not quite. The comparison is not parallel. Licensed Drivers and a populations of people cannot be logically compared to number of jumps. 30 fatalities per 2 million jumps needs to be compared to something like # of car accidents per 2 million outings of cars. A slightly more balanced approach would be if you compared fatalities against the average time of exposure to risk. e.g is an average outing in a car lasts 15 min and an average Skydive lasts 1 min, assuming the risk is evenly distributed over the time span ( just to keep things simple ) then time exposure to risk is: 1 * 100,000 min per 100,000 Skydives and 15 min * 100,000 per 100,000 outings of a car.That would make your fatality number of approx 30 for both cases look more like Skydiving 30 per 100,000 min Driving 30 per 1500,000 min Time of exposure to risk vs fatalities or injuries in that period make driving much safer and base jumping probably much more challenging. What's wrong with using these numbers, already posted, which seem more likely based on real data (although there's no guarantee). www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=739990#739990... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
