Interesting

[Nutz 0]

How does the fatality rate in skydiving compare to other common activities? Since most adults in America drive cars, let's compare skydiving to driving. Roughly 40,000 people die each year in traffic accidents in the United States [ref]. That's 1.7 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles. Therefore, if you drive 10,000 miles per year, your chance of dying in a car wreck in any given year is something like 1 in 6,000. In other words, we accept a higher level of risk by getting into our cars every day than people do by occaisionally skydiving. You would have to jump 17 times per year for your risk of dying in a skydiving accident to equal your risk of dying in a car accident if you drive 10,000 miles per year.

I took this from the website "How Stuff Works". So if I only jump 17 times a year then it is no more dangerous than driving. But wait, I drive at least 30,000 miles a year so that gives me 51 jumps. That is about half of what I have jumped per year so far. Geuss I am going to have to slow down a little bit.

Interesting

[Joyner 0]

I like to use the same math on Swedish numbers:
Number of cars: 6 Million
Number annually killed in car accidents: 600
Miles driven annually average: 10 000 (rough estimate on my part).
Number of jumps annually: 100 000
Numbers killed: 1
(The statistics on jumps is over a 3 year average)

Using the numbers above there is 1 death for 100 million driven miles. That's 1 in 10 000 to die when driving 10 000 miles a year. And that would show you can do 10 skydives in Sweden before skydivning and driving 10000 miles a year are equally dangerous. All of this using the same arguments quoted by Nutz. So what does that mean? Since the statistics on fatalities in skydiving are roughly the same (1 in 100 000). Clearly it must mean that we Swedes are wonderful drivers!? Since we can only do half as many jumps as you can before it's more dangerous than driving

Seriously I'd say the difference is density!! At any given moment there are MANY more cars in movement within a given surface area in the US, than in Sweden. But when it comes to skydiving, we use the same aircraft which means that at any given moment in any given volume (say a dropzone) there are the same amount of skydivers in the air. Hence the similarities in 1 fatality in 100 000 jumps.

I'm willing to bet that if you do 100 000 jumps all at once in one place, you will have more than 1 fatality.

There are plenty of holes in my argument above I know. But I think density is a more important factor than volume alone!

My point? Probably the same one Nutz was trying to make! Using statistics you can make a bullet in the head look like the safest thing you can do!

Hey, I made all you guys look like lousy drivers which is exactly what I wanted to do!

[Push 0]

I think that looking at just the pure statistics is somewhat misleading. What is a lot more important is the actual accident reports. Someone with 40 jumps could decide to buy a VX and say "look at the statistics, I'm safe", when in reality he's almost as good as dead. We know that a few people a year die from extremely difficult or unrecoverable malfunctions, a few die because they didn't deal with a normal malfunction properly, some die because they pulled their main/reserve too low, and most die from low turns. So what does this mean? That if you don't turn low to the ground, pull on time, and know your emergency procedures, you'll be more than reasonably safe, and that sounds good to me. In particular, we can tell that our equipment is extremely reliable. Catastrophic harness failure is virtually unknown, for example.

-- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo
Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

[riddler 0]

Thanks for posting. I remember reading that, but I couldn't find the source. Although it's relatively meaningless to compare the two statistics (since they have nothing to do with each other), I like to use it for whuffos to give them a ball-park of how dangerous it is. Most of them seem to think you will die in every one out of ten jumps. What they get for watching too much TV.

Also need to remember that if you drive 10,000 miles in a year AND do 17 jumps, you are doubling your risk of death Yet another reason to give up driving.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[Joyner 0]

Well maybe not said in those words, but my general point was that the stats are irrelevant.

Push: Well put! I do agree that if you do everything right, you are more than resonably safe. Key word beeing resonably safe. Awarness of that still present risk even when you do everything right, makes you safe(r)!

Statistics won't mean jack to the guy that dies or gets hurt on his first jump. And really stats don't mean jack to me either. Each and every one of us weighs the risk to the reward. Is the reward worth the risk? Only you can answer that. That is the answer I give wuffo friends. If asked for stats I give them straight numbers like 1 in 100 000, I don't compare to driving and such.

[quade 4]

Ok, now do a comparison on the amount of TIME spent in each activity.

Ya know, deaths per participant second.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[billvon 3,079]

>So if I only jump 17 times a year then it is no more dangerous than driving.

If you only jump 17 times a year it is _far_ more dangerous than driving because you aren't very current. Jumping once a month just isn't sufficient to be current for most skydiving.

[ERICCONNELLY 0]

Quote

Hey, I made all you guys look like lousy drivers which is exactly what I wanted to do!

Na...

You guys all drive volvos, not exploding chevy trucks, roll over prone SUV's or tin cans from Korea.

[Joyner 0]

Quote

***
Na...

You guys all drive volvos, not exploding chevy trucks, roll over prone SUV's or tin cans from Korea.

GREAT POINT!!!!!

European cars RULE!

[Push 0]

Per hour it may be much more dangerous, but if I only accumulate a couple of those hours, maybe a few dozens for the most hardcore jumpers, in my jumping career, I'm still probably below the time I spend waiting at red lights a year, not even to mention highway driving. So even though an hour of freefall may be dangerous, we don't get many hours, so it all balances out. Or does it?

-- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo
Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.