Re: [Paddlewise] Numbers Crunching

Wes Boyd wrote:

(snippery)

> The other was a little more ambiguous,
> and I didn't go to that one at all, but the cops and EMTs I talked to off
> the record are pretty much of the opinion that the passenger might well
> have survived had they not been wearing a seat belt.
> 
> But seat belts are good, right? The government tells us so. Why do they
> think so?

In analyses of large numbers of accidents, and injuries, seat belts are 
a net helper.  They reduce mortality and morbidity.  In some cases, they 
may increase injury.  But in many more they reduce it.  Few survive 
being ejected, but few are ejected if belted and belts save lives on 
that alone.  Low speed accidents can kill unbelted occupants, but 
practically never belted ones.  (I have often thought that if you are 
carjacked and he is unbleted, ram something at about 40-50 kph.)

Statistically seatbelts save lives, but some very few times they take 
them.  We have to go with saving many even if it might enhance the risk 
of the few, since all benefit equally from the statistical tradeoff.

Rear seat passengers ought to be belted too.  Was a well-publicised 
accident 20-odd yrs ago:  2 couples, guys in front with belts, wives in 
back without.  Frontal impact.  Guys snap ahead on belts and rebound to 
their seats just as unbelted wives are being catapulted forward and 
decapitate both men.  Yuck.

BTW, it is important to wear belts on hip-bones and not soft abdomen.

> Sure would be interesting to know how many boating/water fatalities could
> have been prevented by NOT wearing a PFD.

In whitewater the usual thought AIUI is that without you might be able 
to swim under a downed tree that is straining the flow (iff it has no 
branches underwater to snag you and drown you for sure) or dive out of a 
hydraulic if you can dive deep to the downstream flow.  Otherwise, the 
PFD helps.

I suppose in some cases you might be able to paddle faster without, and 
thus reach safety from a sorm or larege vessel.  You might be cooler and 
not suffer heatstroke or dehydration, but those are as extreme as the 
other situations, and we hear of few fatalities due to these causes.

GaryJ
-- 
Director, Family Canoeing Centre
Recreational canoeing courses for the whole family.

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