Re: [Paddlewise] Fatality Rates and Paddler(Boater?) Age (was: Immersion Gear Revisited)

From: Craig Jungers <crjungers_at_gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 10:17:17 -0700
On 11/9/07, Nick Schade <nick_at_guillemot-kayaks.com> wrote:
>
>
>   I don't remember the exact scale of the graph but the fatality rate
> (deaths per person-boating-hours) started high with inexperienced
> boaters, dropped quite quickly around 100 hours as people got more
> experience, leveled out for a while before making a long, slow climb
> as the boater's experience level grew over years.


It's interesting to compare this with airplane pilots. Because flying is a
heavily regulated activity even for amateurs there are a lot of data
available. The statistics are interesting because the data collected is so
detailed. When there is an accident the NTSB and FAA collect data on pilot
age, pilot total hours, pilot total hours in type (of aircraft), pilot
ratings (instrument ratings, etc.) aircraft type, and more.

Because they undergo a rigorous training schedule with 50 hours (typically)
of flight time as a trainee there is a rather low accident rate until they
get up to about 100 hours. However, overall, the highest accident rates for
airplane pilots are for those with fewer than 500 hours. Airplane pilots
with less than 1000 hours have about 50% of all accidents and 50% of all
fatal accidents. After that the accident rates decline until a pilot has
over 4000 hours when they rise again significantly.

A report on 2005 is available at the link below. It's fascinating reading.

     http://download.aopa.org/epilot/2006/06nall.pdf


Craig Jungers
Moses Lake, WA
***************************************************************************
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 Fri Nov 09 2007 - 09:17:36 PST

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:31:27 PDT