On Monday, June 25, 2012 12:11:59 PM UTC-4, BobW wrote:
... I actively THOUGHT ABOUT the
possibility I COULD be involved in such. I think the belief not only helped
power/fine-tune my "situational awareness" radar, but favorably influenced all
my future piloting, gliderporting, driving, bicycling, urban pedestrianing,
etc. experiences. Personal safety culture, if you will.

Right. How many glider pilots slip and fall to their death while getting out of the bathtub? You only need one fatal event to die unnaturally. I'm like you. Doing a sport like flying that could so obviously kill me has increased my own sense of mortality and encouraged me to be more careful with the more manageable hazards ... for example, jaywalking. I'm in mortal peril for a few hours a week, but for the remaining hours of the week I'm less likely to die than I was before I took up soaring. So maybe flying has reduced my overall chances of premature termination??

That said, a minority of people are "safety minded". We'd like to think that all pilots are safety minded, but I'm pretty sure that the pilot population spans a broad spectrum of attitudes. I'd accept without evidence that all pilots educate themselves and make an effort to follow relatively safe procedures and fly safely, but I doubt that they all do it to the same objective standard. Some people take much bigger risks relative to skill. Do we accept that some pilots are dangerous to themselves and others? How does a dangerous pilot know that he is dangerous? How does he become less dangerous? Of course, I'm a dangerous pilot... the question for me is how,when, and what can I do about it.