Dangers

[FlyingRhenquest 1]

http://xkcd.com/369/

Now if I search for skydiving I get about 65400 results. But about 260K hits for scuba diving.

Not a very good methodology, of course, though it is mildly interesting to substitute some other terms. I don't get any results for "lion taming" or "lion-taming" accident, so if I'm ever looking for a safer hobby I know where to go!

I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

[PixieUK 0]

Guess you'd need to have the approx. numbers of people who participate in the activities overall so you get percentages instead.

Statistics can be skewed so many different ways that meaningful comparisons are not likely to be easy to come by, lol

A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr

[Di0 2]

I wonder how many of those "elevator" deaths are for "a wrong maneuver while riding the elevator down, because of high wind landing attempt".

I'm standing on the edge
With a vision in my head
My body screams release me
My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

[Boomerdog 0]

First, good subject to discuss and thanks for posting!

I participate in both sports. I don't know how many SCUBA certifications are issued. In rough numbers, USPA has issued about 36,000 licenses in the US. Given the current US population, this is approximately 0.1% or 1/10,000. Soooo...get 10,000 people together through random selection and at least one of them will have a skydiving license.

Both sports are hazardous. In SCUBA diving, however, the lists of hazards are variable in terms of the potential wider range of injury with respect to degree of severity and yes there are some hazards that are just flat fatal. Skydiving on the other hand seems to have a set of injuries that range from severe to fatal...or at least that is the public perception.

A lot of marketing and travel packages for SCUBA divers advertise the warmer climes with crystal clear water. For the rugged diver, all you need is wet water with some degree of visiblity, put on a dry suit (to protect against the cold) and enjoy. In the short time I've been skydiving, it does not appear to me at least that a lot of marketing is required. We all know where the DZ's are and there are skydivers who travel from DZ to DZ as climate is a factor. So how much marketing is required to a committed clientele?

[mcstain 0]

As others have mentioned, you need to know the participation rates to make any sense of the stats from the comic.

A more useful statistic is fatalities per unit of the activity. For example, the fatality rate for skydiving is approximately 1 in 160,000. If 160,000 jumped on the same day, you would expect one of those people to die. How do we compare this to other activities? You would find a similar statistic for SCUBA diving if you looked hard enough, i.e., how many SCUBA deaths are there per 160,000 SCUBA dives?

When it comes to comparing these activities to everyday activities like driving it gets really difficult. What is one "unit" of driving? It's really hard to compare skydiving with other activities like driving or cycling, because of their relative frequency. The risk of dying on any one skydive is approximately 1/160,000, but of course this is influenced by your skill level and the risks of the particular jump you might be taking part in (wingsuit, relative work, freeflying). For driving and cycling, perhaps the best way to compare the risk is by comparing the approximate distance travelled per fatality, and then working out the risk you expose yourself to on a yearly basis by taking part in that activity.

For example, I want to compare the risk of skydiving to driving. In Australia, there are 5.8 fatalities for every billion kilometres travelled by motor vehicle. If I drive 10,000km in a year, this represents an overall risk of death from driving in Australia of 1/17,241. In comparison, the fatality risk of nine skydives is approximately 1/17,777. So while the odds of dying from skydiving are lower for one jump compared to a year of driving, if you jump more than 9 times in a year skydiving represents the greater risk.

As you can see, it can get complicated trying to compare risk across different activities, and it is possible to provide support for a general conclusion (skydiving is safer than driving) by manipulating the parameters of the comparison. Hopefully this gives you some insight into the factors involved!

By the way, the statistic I provided for motor vehicle risk in Australia includes all road users (including drivers, passengers, cyclists and motorcyclists) per 1 billion vehicle-kilometres.

[jakee 1,490]

I wouldn't take it too seriously, I'm pretty sure it's just an excuse to get "died in a blogging accident" in there

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[Arvoitus 1]

Quote

1joke noun \ˈjōk\

: something said or done to cause laughter

: a brief story with a surprising and funny ending

: someone or something that is not worth taking seriously

Also, you might want to read the mouseover text on the comic.

Your rights end where my feelings begin.

[FlyingRhenquest 1]

Well yeah, snake charmers remove the fangs on their snakes, which then eventually starve to death. Seems kind of boring to me. If I were to take up snake charming, I'd leave the fangs in. More interesting that way. But then that statistic might eventually go to "1"...

I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?