Risk of Diving vs Driving

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CT-Rich

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...


This is a spin off for the A&I thread: Accident & Incident Discussion - Northernone - aka Cameron Donaldson

It's off topic to the thread but interesting and we did not want to just delete the posts.

Thank you for posting!





I worry more about driving home from a day of diving than I do during the dives themselves. I am tired and traveling at 65mph. Other cats are around traveling at similar speeds, a momentary lapse in judgement can be fatal. 33,000 fatalities a year is a pretty big number and has touched me much more frequently than deaths from scuba.

I stopped doing 3 dives a day (finishing with a night dive) unless I have someone to share the driving with. I was creating an unjustifiable risk.
 
I worry more about driving home from a day of diving than I do during the dives themselves. I am tired and traveling at 65mph. Other cats are around traveling at similar speeds, a momentary lapse in judgement can be fatal. 33,000 fatalities a year is a pretty big number and has touched me much more frequently than deaths from scuba.

I stopped doing 3 dives a day (finishing with a night dive) unless I have someone to share the driving with. I was creating an unjustifiable risk.

Highly agree about the risks of driving. Just a week ago (the night of Friday 4/5/19) my nice 2015 Toyota Highlander was rear-ended at highway speed by an uninsured guy driving an old 2002 Chevy Tahoe, I'm sure he was staring at his phone and completely ignored the traffic ahead slowing to a stop due to hwy construction. I ended up in the middle of a 3 SUV 'sandwich', his and my SUV's both totaled. I'm now shopping for a replacement, hoping to buy something this coming week. Physically I'm OK, 'luckily' I was hit in the rear, dead on, in a fairly massive SUV which took the hit for me....if I'd been in a Miata or other similar small car, I'm sure I'd be very dead!
 
Highly agree about the risks of driving. Just a week ago (the night of Friday 4/5/19) my nice 2015 Toyota Highlander was rear-ended at highway speed by an uninsured guy driving an old 2002 Chevy Tahoe, I'm sure he was staring at his phone and completely ignored the traffic ahead slowing to a stop due to hwy construction. I ended up in the middle of a 3 SUV 'sandwich', his and my SUV's both totaled. I'm now shopping for a replacement, hoping to buy something this coming week. Physically I'm OK, 'luckily' I was hit in the rear, dead on, in a fairly massive SUV which took the hit for me....if I'd been in a Miata or other similar small car, I'm sure I'd be very dead!

This is exactly the sales pitch that sells SUV's... and then we end up with more of them. (Not blaming you for owning one, just explaining how we got here.)
 
Built for off road and spend most of their time on it ha ha ha stoopid people

I'm sure he was staring at his phone and completely ignored the traffic ahead slowing to a stop due to hwy construction.

hey mate maybe you should have been looking at him on his phone pumping your brake lights ready to move

oops how did i get on the sticking my nose in other peoples suffering section
 
Any way of talking the Judge n DMV into taking his license away and prohibiting him from driving in the state with any other license untill one year after he pays all restitution required? Driving without insurance and no property that can be seized to pay the damages, should be worth another 90 days in the county lockup too.

Michael
 
Highly agree about the risks of driving. Just a week ago (the night of Friday 4/5/19) my nice 2015 Toyota Highlander was rear-ended at highway speed by an uninsured guy driving an old 2002 Chevy Tahoe, I'm sure he was staring at his phone and completely ignored the traffic ahead slowing to a stop due to hwy construction. I ended up in the middle of a 3 SUV 'sandwich', his and my SUV's both totaled. I'm now shopping for a replacement, hoping to buy something this coming week. Physically I'm OK, 'luckily' I was hit in the rear, dead on, in a fairly massive SUV which took the hit for me....if I'd been in a Miata or other similar small car, I'm sure I'd be very dead!

I hope anyone was not injured. Sad to hear this kind of accidents keeps happening. It happened to me twice. Both times were hit by distracted uninsured motorist. First one, 38 years ago. He was busy with his dog running around inside his car. The other one last year a woman was busy attending her baby.

One improvement is the technology of impact absorbing bumper & airbag that they don’t have it 38 years ago. On my first accident the car hit my car from behind so hard that my body slammed on the seat recliner & snapped 2 front bolts of the seat, bent the seat frame until the seat recliner rested on the back seat. Then when my car got pushed forward & hit the front car, my body lunged forward slamming on the seatbelt and my forehead hitting the stirring wheel. I still had the scar to remind me of the accident. His car pretty much fused to the back of my car & both car had to be towed together off HWY 101. I had to claim my loss under uninsured motorist.

On the second accident last year, the damage on the cars were just as bad but no one injured due to the impact absorbing bumper & airbag.
 
I am guilty of saying more at risk driving to the dive than whilst diving. However, the statistics are misleading because they are both incomplete and out of context. The big old SUV probably takes longer to stop, especially if it has all terrain tyres, and a sub compact would have not had the accident, but everyone thinks the SUV is safer so overall the risk increases. The number of auto accidents per driven mile is actually very small. Most (like the examples given) are people not driving but doing something else. (Phone use while driving is illegal here in Europe).

So it is impossible to really work out the risk of an auto accident and the outcome - injury/death/whiplash/nothing - is also dependent on factors that are not specifically related to how much you drive or what you drive. Likewise the risk per dive or per hour bottom time is impossible to calculate unless you have overall figures for how many dives are undertaken, a figure that is not collected by anyone anywhere.

I will stick to the motorbike :D
 
There are some safety improvements made to automobile to prevent personal injury during collisions since 40 years ago, such as airbag, impact absorbing bumpers, etc. Since we are discussing risk of diving vs driving, my question is what safety improvements made to dive gears to prevent divers from say drowning due to equipment related failure since 40 years ago?

I have only been diving for 14 years, so those of you who have been diving longer than me or dive instructors may know & would like to share some of the diving safety advancement made since, say 1980 here.

Thanks!
 
Built for off road and spend most of their time on it ha ha ha stoopid people



hey mate maybe you should have been looking at him on his phone pumping your brake lights ready to move

oops how did i get on the sticking my nose in other peoples suffering section

I never saw him coming, but even if I had seen him coming I had no place to go to avoid him, stationary traffic in front, both lanes totally hemmed in by concrete hwy barriers/dividers, I was totally locked in place.
 
Any way of talking the Judge n DMV into taking his license away and prohibiting him from driving in the state with any other license untill one year after he pays all restitution required? Driving without insurance and no property that can be seized to pay the damages, should be worth another 90 days in the county lockup too.

Michael

I had/have uninsured motorist coverage, my insurance has already paid me the 'settlement', now I'm new SUV shopping so I'm not involved in any court proceedings, although my insurance company may well be going after him, I honestly don't know.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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