Reducing the Accident Rate

Hi All,

Just got back from the national convention of my type
club (insert glowing comments about beautiful planes,
wonderful people, fun activities, helpful FBO here)

So here's a topic related to Jay's thread "Scary". At
the membership meeting, the club's Safety Director rightly
pointed out something many here have commented on: every
GA accident is "news" these days, and if we want to keep
flying (and keep being able to buy insurance) we pilots,
as a group, need to lower the accident rate.

So how? I have a great deal of respect for this man. He's
a stand-up guy, a pilot with breadth and depth of experience,
and a long-time CFI. But his "solution" is to have a one-day
course, associated with the National Convention, in which
pilots pay a hefty fee ($100-$200) for 'recurrant training'
done by "national names".

Call me a skeptic, but I feel this goes along with WINGS
seminars: it's 'preaching to the choir', to a large extent.
Maybe 10 or at most, 20% of the membership makes it to the
conventions. The ones who would pay to take this course
are, like the pilots who show up at the WINGS seminars,
those who have already made a mental committment to recurrant
training and who, if every safety seminar in the country
became extinct, would "roll their own" out of books and magazines
and discussions with pilots and CFIs they respect.

Most of the pilots who are taking off without proper respect
for DA or flying into ice/tstorms/IMC or buzzing their buddy's
house, I think, aren't coming to these things. Maybe I'm wrong?
Maybe they come, and think "oh, well, only ignorant low-hours
pilots have trouble when they try to run cows around with their
plane, I'm a super-skilled high-time pilot so *I* can do it just
fine" (insert analogous phrase about other activities)?

Anyway, here's the question: how DO we reduce the accident
rate? How do we preach, not just to the choir, but to the
80-90% of pilots who *don't* attend WINGS seminars or other
recurrant training?

Cheers,
Sydney