Re: [Paddlewise] Kayaking safety

John Winters wrote:
> 
> I realise that Dr. Wilde did not address the specific aspect of training
> increasing risk taking in the article on my web site and that is why I
> suggested that interested parties also read Dr. Wilde's book which is
> published in its entirety on his personal web site.
> 
> ...
> 
> In his book Dr. Wilde uses two large scale and separate studies of driver
> education to
> show that one's increased belief in personal skills increases risk taking
> out of proportion to real risk.  In both studies it was shown that students
> successfully completing driver's education courses had higher accident
> rates than those without any formal training. ...SNIP...

After reading this I went to his web site to read his book. It should be
noted that he also provides examples of studies which do *not* show this
(including two Canadian studies).  For example, he writes:

	"The effect of the change in [training] legislation was 
	investigated by researchers at the Université de Montréal, 
	who concluded that the new requirement had no appreciable 
	effect on the frequency or severity of accidents amongst 
	newly licensed drivers who were 18 or older."

He goes on to point out that accidents increased for 16 and 17
year-olds, but only because the government-subsidized education allowed
more of them to begin driving at an early age. 

Another example where training did not increase the accident rate is
summarized by Wilde as follows:
 
	"In Ontario, self-reported and officially recorded accidents 
	were compared between (a) some 800 motorcyclists who had
	graduated from the Motorcycle Training Programme conducted 
	by the Ontario Safety League, and (b) some 1100 motorcyclists 
	who had informal training only. There was no difference in 
	accident experience between the two groups." 

Clearly the evidence regarding the effect of training on accident rates
is mixed. I am certainly not convinced that skill development in sea
kayaking has a tendency to increase accident rates.  (Of course we would
NOT expect it to decrease accident rates unless skilled paddlers have a
lower risk target than unskilled paddlers, which is highly unlikely.) 

John continues:

> ...SNIP...
> The difference is that Robert's example revealed using rolling to enable
> increased risk as a priority rather than a method to reduce risk and
> increase safety. My comment focuses on being prepared for a mistake.
> Clearly there are no
> absolutes in risk assessment but there are rather clearly defined
> attitudes. There is the attitude that "I am better therefor I can take more
> chances" ...

Correct me if I am mistaken, but you seem to be critical of this
attitude, *regardless* of whether the person expressing it has correctly
assessed the risk.  The attitude that "I am better therefore I can take
more chances" is perfectly rational so long as the paddler does not
underestimate the risk involved.  As Wilde points out, optimizing risk
is very different from minimizing risk.  Skill development creates a
safety "problem" only to the extent that the individual becomes
overconfident.  The fact that skilled paddlers undertake greater
challenges than less skilled paddlers is not by itself evidence of a
safety problem.

Again, I want to emphasize that the type of training that John advocates
is exactly what is needed to help prevent overconfidence, which *is* a
safety problem. While I am not convinced that skill development leads to
overconfidence as a general proposition, certainly there are some
individual paddlers who become overconfident, precisely because
they have not thought through the risk factors to which John refers in
his post.

Dan Hagen
Bellingham, Washington
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