>>Do Leashes, tethers, epirbs, strobes, paddlefloats etc make a safer paddler? >>Or quite the opposite, does making the informed choice NOT to carry these >>items make a safer paddler? I have been reflecting on this for pretty much >>the life of this list, and I believe the latter case. I wear a foam pfd and >>helmet on the river but choose neither of them at sea. I might decide to >>take only paddle, clothing and boat or I may have a boat full of kit down to >>a vhf and gps. When am I safer? Does the excess equipment make me an un-safe >>paddler? If you want an automotive analogy to this situation, then look at ABS brakes. When they were first introduced on cars in the US, the number of fatal accidents went down. After a few years though, when the majority of drivers have incorporated this "saftey" advance into their driving style i.e. they assume they can ALWAYS stop safely, the number of fatals has increased. Interestingly, these drivers are now successfully avoiding the original hazard that caused them to brake and swerve but are then coming to grief on large, solid, immoveable object like trees on the side of the road-things that had not even registered as a safety hazard to the driver when everything was going well. The same is true for better roads, tyres, airbags etc-the added safety margin that these things provide is eroded (generally) by higher speed and reduced following distance etc. I can well imagine that kayakers as a group display a similar characteristic-do the old hands at this now go out in conditions that ten or fifteen years ago they wouldn't have considered safe, because they now have "good gear" ? If the answer is yes, then they can probably say goodbye to that newly aquired safety margin that the vhf, drysuit or whatever represents. Are you using the nice toys to enhance your paddling experience or to push the envelope a bit further ? Pete (who is new to this sea kayaking thing, so dont take my word for it) *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Apr 02 2001 - 16:59:21 PDT
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