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Ron 7
QuoteYou have a 2% chance of dying in a motor vehicle accident every time you get on the road.
You have a 0.006% chance of dying in a skydiving accident.
There are about 30k USPA members in the US. About 30 people die each year.
Using dissimilar numbers can not bring good results.
The "safer than driving" has been beat to death.... I think it is false, personally. But if you want to do a search it will provide my and others opinions on the topic.
QuoteYou have a 2% chance of dying in a motor vehicle accident every time you get on the road.
I think you might want to give that one another look?
To the OP: I haven't been jumping as long as some, but I'm in year 7 and looking back I don't really think there's anything I wish I'd known earlier - other than not to buy a brand new complete rig first up
But as for the risks... they're pretty well understood and well described, even to new people. Keep your eyes and ears open, don't write checks with your dick that your ass can't cash, and (to paraphrase the single greatest piece of advice given on this forum) "if you get two conflicting opinions from very experienced people, pick the more conservative one".
You'll be fine.
"I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan
"You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?
grimmie 173
Every single time you don a rig and fly in an airplane, be careful.
Quotetrying to figure out all of your acronyms, etc.
This might help with the vocabulary:
http://www.uspa.org/SIM/Read/Glossary/tabid/173/Default.aspx
devildog 0
QuoteQuoteYou have a 2% chance of dying in a motor vehicle accident every time you get on the road.
You have a 0.006% chance of dying in a skydiving accident.
There are about 30k USPA members in the US. About 30 people die each year.
Using dissimilar numbers can not bring good results.
The "safer than driving" has been beat to death.... I think it is false, personally. But if you want to do a search it will provide my and others opinions on the topic.
Except not everyone that jumps is a USPA member and not every member makes only 1 jump a year.
If you want a rough idea (rough, not taking in any sort of factors other than jump #s) you just take total deaths each year, divide it by total jumps each year, and that's your chance to die per jump -- roughly.
Ron 7
QuoteQuoteQuoteYou have a 2% chance of dying in a motor vehicle accident every time you get on the road.
You have a 0.006% chance of dying in a skydiving accident.
There are about 30k USPA members in the US. About 30 people die each year.
Using dissimilar numbers can not bring good results.
The "safer than driving" has been beat to death.... I think it is false, personally. But if you want to do a search it will provide my and others opinions on the topic.
Except not everyone that jumps is a USPA member and not every member makes only 1 jump a year.
If you want a rough idea (rough, not taking in any sort of factors other than jump #s) you just take total deaths each year, divide it by total jumps each year, and that's your chance to die per jump -- roughly.
Hence the 'Using dissimilar numbers can not bring good results.'
Not everyone that rides a motorcycle has the same risk either. Frankly the actions are too dissimilar for any kind of simple comparison.
But skydiving has no breaks, once you start a skydive you go full throttle till you start stopping. When you start stopping, the brakes can malfunction and it happens enough that we train for it.
blueblur 0
QuoteQuoteDon't obsess about the numbers because, as someone once said, "If you torture numbers long enough they'll confess to anything."
The longer I am in this sport, the more hyper-aware I become of all the ways I could die (or become seriously injured) doing it. In many many ways that's made me a better skydiver, and it's made me a skydiver who makes different choices (often more conservative ones). It means I'm more likely to land farther away from the packing area if it means I have more open space to land in. It means that I am likely to say "no" to a jump if I look at the size/skill level on the jump and think "This is likely to be a shit show." It means I'm likely to sit down when winds start to get wonky. Those are just some examples, but you get the idea.
I don't know about others, but I constantly reassess the risk/reward equation. For now, it still pencils out for me. At some point, it might not pencil out, either because of an increase (either real or perceived) in the risk, or a decrease in the reward.
That's exactly what my post was after, thanks for the reply.
I don't really bother with the statistics too much and I try to temper what I read on forums. If I were to believe what I read about motorcycles, be it in the news, on forums or in statistics I'd have a pretty inaccurate picture in my head. I can only assume with skydiving, but I imagine at least some of the same risk perception inaccuracies are in play... from both sides of the fence.
Again, this isn't an attempt to discout the risks involved. In both cases they're very real.
I'm new myself, but by your avatar pic, we share a common background. As a trackday rider, you'll be much better equipped mentally to learn skydiving safely. Things will slow down for you faster than most and you will relate skills and happenings in jumping to being on a bike esp. on the track. Like others have said, learn something every jump and keep learning in between visits to the DZ!
Welcome to your new addiction!
- RiggerLee
Squeak 17
There's a lot of doom sayers in this sport, much like in the bike community (there's also a reasonably large contingent of motorbike riders here)
But a lot of this sport is "perceived risk", It's not half as extreme as some would have you believe.
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?
muff528 3
Quote"There is no such thing as a routine jump!"
Every single time you don a rig and fly in an airplane, be careful.
This right here ^
Each and every jump you make can and will end in a fatality unless you proactively keep that from happening ...beginning with attitude and ongoing training, attention to detail and accepted practices (BSRs), awareness in the air, right down to landing. Even then, it still could end badly. It doesn't matter how many jumps you accumulate, you have to survive each and every one (except maybe the last one.)
Most importantly, Have FUN!
Shredex 0
QuoteQuoteYou have a 2% chance of dying in a motor vehicle accident every time you get on the road.
I think you might want to give that one another look?
.
Yes, I mean 2% of licensed drivers will die in a motor vehicle accident each year. That's based of the number of licensed drivers vs fatalities per year.
piisfish 135
64.7 % of statistics are made upQuoteQuoteMotorcycles are more dangerous, especially if you're a daily rider like I was.
You have a 2% chance of dying in a motor vehicle accident every time you get on the road.
You have a 0.006% chance of dying in a skydiving accident.
Completely out of wack. Check your numbers.
For those of you who have been doing this a long time, how have your thoughts about how dangerous skydiving is changed over time, with experience, more jumps, etc? Would anyone care to offer some insight on how your perception of the dangers may have changed over the years? Is there anything you look back on now and think, MAN, I wish I knew this back when I started out.
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