2008/11/21 Adrian Stott [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > Throughout this thread, I haven't suggested banning anything. I have > counselled against single-handed boating, as IMHO it is a fairly > dangerous activity, the dangers of which are significantly > under-recognised.
What evidence whatsoever is there for this? If singlehanded boating were a significant risk factor then I can tell you the insurance companies wouldn't 'under recognise' it. Indeed, I would expect mention to made of it in insurance policies. But I've never heard of one that does. Similarly if it was a significantly dangerous activity as you suggest, do you think BW wouldn't have already made moves to limit it? The fact is, there is too much made of safety generally on the waterways. At the time the CofC (or whatever it was called then) was introduced I requested from BW any figures they might have for injuries/deaths caused to boaters by issues the safety measures were intended to prevent. They hadn't got any. IMO if they had been available I think I might have discovered that the level of deaths/injuries suffered by boaters as a result of lack of maintanance of their own craft was less that those experienced as a result of the failure or misuse of BW equipment. But figures for that weren't available either. And anyhow, I wouldn't want to go down that route. Being alive is a dangerous enough business. It kills you in the end. The idea of holding BW to account for a level of accidents that you could expect in any area of human activity is preposterous. Narrowboating - single-handed or otherwise - isn't 'dangerous' in any way commonly understood by the use of that word. If it was most of us wouldn't be doing it. Steve [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
