My experience of the number of friends and aquaintences
killed in gliding accidents, compared to those lost
in road accidents, matches every one else's comments.
However it is worth remembering that whilst I will
almost certainly hear about anyone I have ever known
being killed in a glider, a road fatality to someone
I knew but didn't see regularly, may well never be
reported to me, so my perception that more people that
I know are killed in gliders than on the road may not
be entirely accurate.

Having said that I am, however, convinced that on a
fatalaties to hours ratio, flying gliders is much more
dangerous than driving.

At 23:48 11 June 2005, Bob Whelan wrote:
...
Eric Greenwell wrote...
Stewart Kissel wrote:
One thing that has always bothered me with comparing
the fatality rate of autos to gliders is....with
autos,
you got a pretty good chance of getting killed by
another
driver. In gliders, you are almost always responsible
for your own death. So I am not sure how valid the
accident comparison rate is between the two.

My interpretation is this: I've known (met, flown
with, talked to,
corresponded with, not just heard their name) ten
or more glider pilots
killed in glider accidents, but none that were killed
in a car accident
on their way to or from the airport; for that matter,
I can think of
only one pilot I knew that was killed in a car accident
anywhere.

For the record, my take is this. Anytime you go faster
than you're willing
to hit a brick wall, or higher than you're willing
to fall, you're opting
for life-threatening risks. For me, driving obviously
qualifies as the
former, and arguably as the latter if I manage to go
off a bridge or the
side of a mountain/mesa. Soaring obviously qualifies
as both each time I do
it.

Consequently each time I indulge in either I try to
maintain an active
awareness that each activity involves energies high
enough to easily kill
me. Personally, driving makes me more uneasy than
soaring for the reason
Stewart noted: many of the actively-life-threatening
risks are beyond my
direct control. Yet paradoxically, my driving-/soaring-acquaintan
ce 'death
stats' mirror Eric's (and Bruno Gantenbrink's) experiences.
Arguing about
(as distinct from discussing) 'which activity is safer'
strikes me as an
exercise in futility, because one can 'prove' whatever
they want and thus
it's an unending argument (well, at least until I die,
ha ha).

Acting with constant awareness that each activity contains
immediate
potential to suddenly kill me, combined with training,
continuing education
and good judgement is the best I can do. I've difficulty
imagining living
life without indulging in either activity, so that's
how I attempt to
control the risks of both (and any other activity I
must - or choose to -
indulge in). Makes sense to me!

Weenily,
Bob - still has all his fingers - Whelan