I believe you. You are talking about responsible parents.
Correct. I also umpire high school baseball. Dive parents are much more level-headed than baseball parents.
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I believe you. You are talking about responsible parents.
Yeah, agree again. There is also that you'll hear people say that there are more injuries/deaths playing sports-- especially like football-- than in diving. Just like there are many more killed by dogs than sharks each year. Difference is that underwater we are in an alien environment with access only to tank air unless we surface. Can't say why, but that makes me more wary.Correct. I also umpire high school baseball. Dive parents are much more level-headed than baseball parents.
Perhaps a good point. In some places I know drivers must complete a driving test every year over age 85. But there is more likely that an older driver may cause an accident and harm others, whereas the old diver would likely only harm him/herself.Young drivers are disproportionately represented in traffic accidents so it makes sense to put restrictions on them. I would support it for young divers, but going by our own section on accidents and fatalities for divers, there seems to be disproportionate representation by older divers. Maybe the restrictions should be placed there, if we are to be scientific about it.
OW divers are taught to look after themselves and to share air when requested to do so.
Here are some things I herd, more or less verbatim, from teachers when we met at parent-teacher conferences.......
You have explained this to me before and I don't disagree. There seems to be a consensus on SB that every diver should take Rescue as soon as their diving is in reasonably good shape. For PADI, only Adventure Diver with NAV is now required, not AOW, and the old 20 dive requirement is long gone. Since a lot of these situations are so rare (and of course I believe you when you say that--I certainly have no experience with anything truly scary), why the emphasis on taking Rescue at all?
I understand the Interference Theory. Others have explained it simply that throwing too much at an OW student in the time permitted for the course would be confusing and maybe overbearing. Agree with that as well. So it is the way it is-- unless maybe we double the time and cost of the OW course. I'm not against that. Then again, I'm through spending $ on courses.
Here are some things I herd, more or less verbatim, from teachers when we met at parent-teacher conferences.
"I have a lot of high-powered, highly motivated students who want and deserve all the support I can give them. That does not leave me any time for the students who aren't working like that."
"Your son failed the last chemistry test, but that is not unusual. Only 4 students passed it. It's too bad, too, because it's the basis for all we do after this, and that means all the students will struggle without that base information. Will I reteach it and retest? Of course not! I never do that!"
"This area has a lot of students who are working hard and doing very well. If I don't find a way to get some lower grades, everyone would be getting A's and B's."
I would not have become a diver if the price had been double what it was. I thought long and hard about that expense (and the expense of the activity following the class) at the price it was then.If the price and duration of OW courses was double, my guess is that a huge amount of divers would not exist.
It is actually the precise opposite. DAN has long noted that the two most consistent factors in dive fatalities is older age and obesity. They have noted that not only is the average age of a fatality well above the median age for participating, that age is rising.@Eric Sedletzky @Scraps you are saying that young divers are more likely to have accidents. Do you know where I can find a statistic and a report about it?
It is actually the precise opposite. DAN has long noted that the two most consistent factors in dive fatalities is older age and obesity. They have noted that not only is the average age of a fatality well above the median age for participating, that age is rising.
Considering the fact that the largest category for fatalities each year is usually medical events, especially cardiac events, age is very likely a factor beyond just having the most divers.Frankly speaking, it seems to me that the number of fatalities is too low to be statistically significant. Also, assuming that there are more adult divers than kids, the fact that more old people are more represented in these statistics can be just because they are much more, and not because they are more at risk.