High incidence of drownings this year

[Zurdo]

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zeala...ty-nz.html

14 year high in drownings. It's the beaches fault, they will have to make the beaches safer. It's the Lifeguards fault, we need more...will conscription help ? There has to be some reason for all these deaths by drowning....what is it ?...?

[Oh_hunnihunni]

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zeala...ty-nz.html

14 year high in drownings. It's the beaches fault, they will have to make the beaches safer. It's the Lifeguards fault, we need more...will conscription help ? There has to be some reason for all these deaths by drowning....what is it ?...?

People don't know how to swim. And people don't know how to recognise rips.

Oh, and people drink and dive.

[CliveM]

/Back in the olden days a lot of people had a swimming pool of some kind as did most schools where children were taught to swim. The Government (of all kinds) introduced so many rules and regulations that it became far too expensive for all but the rich to continue to do that. Now a lot of people cannot swim and not only that blame everyone but themselves when things go wrong. It is called the law of unintended consequences.

[piroska]

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zeala...ty-nz.html

14 year high in drownings. It's the beaches fault, they will have to make the beaches safer. It's the Lifeguards fault, we need more...will conscription help ? There has to be some reason for all these deaths by drowning....what is it ?...?

People don't know how to swim. And people don't know how to recognise rips.

Oh, and people drink and dive.

My son is an excellent swimmer. Competed for a time. He was rescued at Piha when he was around 18. Swimming in jeans. He knew you shouldn't, he was caught in a rip too. He said  he was shocked how tired he got.
So there you go...stupidity and over confidence.

Rather like driving. He never wore a seatbelt either, until he crashed up the back of a van one day. Concussion.

[Olive]

/Back in the olden days a lot of people had a swimming pool of some kind as did most schools where children were taught to swim. The Government (of all kinds) introduced so many rules and regulations that it became far too expensive for all but the rich to continue to do that. Now a lot of people cannot swim and not only that blame everyone but themselves when things go wrong. It is called the law of unintended consequences.

"Olden days" ?   Do you mean pre-1987 when the Fencing of Swimming Pools Act was passed?  ( Subsequently repealed and replaced by the Building (Pools) Amendment Act).     I think you will find that many more young lives have been saved by these regulations than have been lost because of inability to swim.   I know some people want to blame absolutely everything on the government but I think this is stretching it.

[king1]

I recall the intermediate school pool we used as kids for holiday swims eventually gave up on letting the community use the pool in the holidays, primarily because of the health and safety requirement around water quality testing, which iirc required two tests a day. Which I guess meant paying someone...

[Kenj]

I learned to swim in the late 1940's when my older sister pushed me off a jetty in the Whau estuary that went into New Lynn. I dog paddled around to the shore and ran to the end and pushed her in. Revenge.... ha ha! We both became quite proficient swimmers from there on. Aah, those were the days. Just a bunch of kids, a muddy tidal creek and no adults. We swam there for many years. I look on Google Maps now and can't even see where that was, progress, I suppose?

Ken

[Oldfellah]

We seem to have gone off topic here , from roads to swimming!

[king1]

We seem to have gone off topic here , from roads to swimming!

Quite right, it deserves its own thread...

[Oh_hunnihunni]

We also have lots more immigrants and tourists who think our beaches are easy fun. Most have never experienced beaches, rivers, lakes like ours. And a fair few of them drown. Then there are the 'let's buy a boat' lot...

[zqwerty]

To me it seems as if there is a a lot more idiots around than there used to be.

In general the zeitgeist is a lot more stressing than it used to be.

[R2x1]

To me it seems as if there is a a lot more idiots around than there used to be.

In general the zeitgeist is a lot more stressing than it used to be.

If people can just let evolution, Murphy, and the waterways work together the Idiot Quotient will naturally level off. Nature has given us a system that allows idiots perishing before breeding tending not to multiply quite so fast as OSH might wish.
We'll just have to look for potential politicians elsewhere, e.g., under rocks.

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We seem to have gone off topic here , from roads to swimming!

Dunno about your neck of the woods, but 'round here swimming is the most practical way for non-vehicle road users to use pedestrian crossings.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

It doesn't help that only well funded schools can maintain swimming pools and provide basic water skills education to their students.

Schools have to choose between many competing demands on their budgets, and refurbing and maintaining pools to the standards now required, and staffing those facilities is a ongoing cost way higher than it was in the days when we could compete for life saving medals through our schools. It is now left to parents to provide those skills, and more often than not, those parents don't have the skills themselves.

[Zurdo]

We seem to have gone off topic here , from roads to swimming!

Quite right, it deserves its own thread...

I put it in the bloody road accident thread for a reason !!!

[king1]

Quite right, it deserves its own thread...

I put it in the bloody road accident thread for a reason !!!

It did however derail the thread, hence why it has been split.

[Kenj]

Is it interesting that the govt. put funding of $63M into water safety in the 2020 budget. Like the road deaths, we have had our senses constantly pummeled by advertising about water safety and yet with the number of drownings reaching a 14-year high of 93.

Ken

[CliveM]

That is more about government PR and keeping the media and advertising agencies on side than water safety. Make yet another announcement about an announcement and throw another 10 million or so into thin air job done!

[Oh_hunnihunni]

I put it in the bloody road accident thread for a reason !!!

It did however derail the thread, hence why it has been split.

Conversations have a habit of wandering around all over the place. It is what human beings do when thinking out loud.

And, it beats the hell out of silence.

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That is more about government PR and keeping the media and advertising agencies on side than water safety. Make yet another announcement about an announcement and throw another 10 million or so into thin air job done!

It might be a more efficient use of money if instead of consultants, advertising agencies, marketing groups and advisors scooping up the funding, it went to actual educators with the best chance of teaching people how to swim.

Or feed hungry children. Or stop drunk drivers, or reduce speeds on our roads, or make them safer to travel on.

Seems to me far too many dollars are getting sucked up by bureaucrats and consultancies, starving the real targets of funding. Business as usual...

[Zurdo]

Conversations have a habit of wandering around all over the place. It is what human beings do when thinking out loud.

Of course, and a derail is a normal occurrence in any discussion. There is always some loudmouth who is more interested in the sound of their own voice than content. I meant drowning to see seen alongside road deaths, and the Government (or their departments, Ministers are just mouthpieces) response. We will have endless money and useless changes to put an end to road deaths, an impossible dream...and drownings ? A few heart felt comments in summer.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

Conversations have a habit of wandering around all over the place. It is what human beings do when thinking out loud.

Of course, and a derail is a normal occurrence in any discussion. There is always some loudmouth who is more interested in the sound of their own voice than content. I meant drowning to see seen alongside road deaths, and the Government (or their departments, Ministers are just mouthpieces) response.  We will have endless money and useless changes to put an end to road deaths, an impossible dream...and drownings ?  A few heart felt comments in summer.

Well, I am a known loudmouth, believe in impossible dreams, and learnt to swim properly when I was given a sailfish for my twelveth birthday. Before that I was just a school pool dabbler.

I'm still reward focused. It is a character flaw.