Re: [Paddlewise] Kayaking safety

Robert C. Perkins wrote:
> 
> from Dr. Wilde's book:  "one's increased belief in personal skills
> increases risk taking out of proportion to real risk."
> 
> This is exactly what I was talking about.  

This quote seems somewhat out of context, at least as a statement of a
general proposition.  For example, Wilde points out that the most
skilled drivers of all--racing drivers--have higher accident rates (on
public roads) than less skilled drivers. He rejects, however, the
explanation that this is due to overconfidence, prefering instead to
attribute the result to differences in risk targets: 

	"In our view, the increased accident frequency of the racing 
	drivers is not due to their superior driving skill--since accident
	frequency in RHT [Risk Homeostasis Theory] is regarded as ultimately 
	independent of skill--but can more likely be attributed to a 	
greater-than-average acceptance of risk, which induced them to pick 
	up the activity of car racing to begin with. At their level of skill, 
	driving like the average driver may be intolerably boring."

This is precisely what I suspect to be true of skilled paddlers.  To the
extent that they have higher accident rates, it may reflect different
attitudes toward the optimal level of risk (as opposed to
overconfidence). Elsewhere in the book Wilde provides yet another
possible explanation. He suggests that those with fewer skills may tend
to OVERestimate risk, which implies that they have lower accident rates
than they would if their risk estimates were unbiased.  As they become
more skilled and better informed about an activity, their accident rates
will tend to rise.  Such individuals increase their exposure
disproportionately with their improvement in skills.  The resulting
increase in accident rates is **desirable**, however, in the sense that
such individuals are converging on their target levels of risk.

Finally, if you are to be consistent in your application of Wilde's
analysis, you should acknowledge that all of your talk of grave dangers
awaiting ill-informed paddlers may contribute to the problem.  Warnings
can be counterproductive if they exaggerate the risk.  As Wilde
explains:        

	"This is why over-use of warnings may be dangerous. A warning that is
not 		perceived as needed will not be heeded--even when it is needed.
...
	Similarly, 'a warning can increase danger when it overstates danger', 
	meaning that a person's behaviour may become less cautious if that
 	person has learned that the danger is usually less great than stated
in 
	the warning."

The bottom line is that warnings are useful and productive only to the
extent that the danger is not overstated. This is something that we
should all keep in mind.

Dan Hagen
Bellingham, Washington
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