RE: [Paddlewise] lost kayaker in tampa bay.....

There is actually a difference between stupidity and lack of awareness.

Many of us - through training or experience - think (more or less deeply)
about risk when we start to do something new. There are many who don't do
this - simply because life hasn't yet led them to do so.

For this group, we have labels saying "Don't put fingers into mower blades",
"Don't stand on packing box", "Keep plastic bag away from infants". Are any
of these useful for more than liability-avoidance ?

For this group, a nation-wide, long-running series of well-designed,
maximum-shock-value, full-colour TV and print ads will force awareness of
risk on a population which doesn't drive sober, or drive belted, or dress
for immersion when playing on the water.

The ads need to stress death, blood, agony, tears and reinforce the message
that it's not 'if' but 'when' and that it _will_ happen or _can_ happen to
anybody. That works to break down the 'can't happen to me' armour.

This is an expensive route - very expensive - but effective at changing a
whole society's behaviour within a decade. I've watched it happen here in NZ
for seatbelts & drunk-driving. I'm not sure much else works... In a modern
world, we self-insulate extremely well against spam. Effective public
re-programming is hard. But if you can justify the expense, you can make
people permanently aware of the risks.

The smallish number of people who continue to practice the high-risk
activity after being made aware that it is high-risk... they are just
stupid.

So, in the case of avoidable cold-water death - what's the cost-benefit
ratio of deaths vs ad-campaign?
Are there other under-appreciated risks, further up that scale, still / also
waiting for funding ?

Best Regards
Paul Hayward, Auckland, New Zealand
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