On Tue, Jan 05, 2010 at 09:28:17AM -0800, Erik S wrote: > Taking this line of reasoning one step further - wearing a life jacket > (LJ) could also be of benefit to the paddling community at large. > Were someone to die who was not wearing a LJ, family members could > lobby legislators to come up with some poorly written legislation about > mandatory LJ use. I've said this same thing for many years. Legislative and regulatory initiatves are often driven by the need to be seen "doing something", even if that something is pointless, expensive or even counter-productive. (The TSA provides examples of this on a near-daily basis, sometimes by what it does, also by simply continuing to exist.) Quite often, in fact, *most* often, such initiatives are driven by single, highly emotionally-charged events and do not include the kind of sober risk analysis that's necessary to evaluate risk/reward tradeoffs. Throw in a helping of "we must do it for the childrennnnnnn" (which is now recognized by everyone working in the Internet arena as a red flag for bad legislation) and salt to taste with media coverage of grieving survivors, and add a pinch of fear fear fear FEAR! and it's the perfect recipe for a disaster. ---Rsk *************************************************************************** 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 Tue Jan 05 2010 - 09:52:59 PST
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