The unguarded, steep slope into deep water would bring any British or American play safety inspector out in a rash. But think for a moment. Many Dutch towns are built on floodplains or land reclaimed from the sea. Dykes, ditches and canals are part of everyday life. Most new developments are required to include a significant proportion of open water for flood management. Many domestic back gardens drop off into water. On one trip to the Netherlands, I asked some parents whether they thought it was safe to have unprotected water at the bottom of their garden. Their answer? “When our children cannot swim well, we always keep an eye on them. Once they learn, we trust them to keep themselves safe.”
Also see Mollie Hemingway's post at Ricochet.
2 comments:
This attitude works fine until you apply statistical analysis and accept zero accidents/fatalities/injuries as the goal. After analysis there will be a multitude of laws, rules, irrational behaviour applied, and then you apply the analysis again and see a result closer to zero so you apply more rules, laws and regulations. We then add to that litigation and financial gain from fault analysis that somebody must pay for every outcome somebody perceives as negative. Yet Humans are not rational. Statistics will tell you that you have a much much much greater chance of being killed in a motor vehicle accident than winning the lottery, yet we believe we might win the lottery but doubt we will be killed in a car. I think it's interesting to imagine if yesterday we didn't have cars and today we do, I very much doubt they would accept the risk of cars as a mode of transport when the current attitudes and methodology of rules, regulations and litigation were applied.
Bob,
I like that car example. We know we could save lives if all were required to drive 25 miles an hour. We aren't, however, willing to go that far in the name of safety.
Michael
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