After the incident during the Reno Air Races there have been calls to ban the sport because of the dangers involved. This is heard every time an accident occurs at any dangerous sporting event, questions are asked after serious accidents during local motorbike road races for example, such as the Northwest 200.
These are undoubtadly extremely dangerous activities but personally I’ve never understood the mentality behind people who want to ban them. Nobody forces the competitors to participate, in fact the sport is often one of the most important things in their lives.
As far as I’m concerned if someone is an adult and of sound mind, if they understand and accept the risks involved in the activity what business is it of anyone else to prevent them participating in their chosen sport?
This goes for spectators also attending the event.
Reno is too far for me to go. I’d like to attend one day, but it’s not something that would be a regular event. I’d also like to go to Oshkosh. Before 9/11 suspended many air shows, I regularly attended the ones at Edwards AFB, NAS Miramar, NAS Point Mugu, and MCAS El Toro. I’d go to the Van Nuys Air Fair, too, and I attended Chino once. In the '70s I liked going to the California National Championship Air Races at Mojave. In the '80s Fox Field had an open house and air show. Up here I’ve been to the open house at Everett a couple of times (thanks to notifications from Pork Rind), Abbotsoford, BC, and the Arlington Fly-In.
As far as I’m concerned, the more of these events the better. With more of them around they would more likely fall on days I could attend. The vendors would be happy, and the localities collecting taxes from the vendors would be happy. More aviation events might induce more people to learn to fly. (Arlington is the one that made me finally get off me arse and start getting current.) People learning to fly would go to their local airports to do it, which would help the schools – which pay taxes. If more people flew, schools would be more likely to buy another airplane or two. While most small schools are not going to invest in a factory-new airplane, I think factory-new airplanes will be sold somewhere along the line. So good news for Cessna and Piper and Cirrus, who would hire people to build the products, who would pay income tax and have money to spend.
General Aviation has a large impact on the U.S. economy. In 2005 the direct output was nearly $40 billion. Add in indirect and induced amounts and it comes to over $150 billion and more than a 1.2 million jobs. .pdf
If air races and air shows help get people interested in aviation, and if they help General Aviation, then let’s have more of them; not fewer.
I agree lets bring back dueling pistols! See you at high noon.
There is a limit to the type of activities our society is willing to accept. The level of acceptance varies with time and population. I tend to fall on the side of letting the airplane racing continue, but can understand the argument it should be banned for the good of society. It’s an activity that gets people killed, we as a society have a duty to stop needless deaths. Allowing Russian roulette contests might bring in income and contain population growth but some might argue it’s bad for social reasons, I tend to agree with them.
I can assure you that you’re challenging the wrong ruggedly-handsome Irishman, possessed as I am of a strong sense of honour, a devil-may-care attitude, lightning reflexes and a very good aim
Seriously though if it wasn’t for the problems legislating for a fair duel and the difficulty in preventing people utilising it for effectively legalised murder I’d be all for bringing back dueling. People might be a bit more civil and polite if they were aware that their behaviour and conduct might result in the possibility of a duel.
Do we as a society have any particular duty to prevent an adult of sound mind taking whatever risks s/he wants? I suppose if it was an activity that had an almost certain risk of resulting in a fatality people should be prevented from doing it, but thats only because we have a duty to prevent people committing suicide.
I guess its a matter of what level of risk we’re willing to let people take on board, for myself that bar is set at a very high level.
It can be about any activity you want to discuss, boxing is certainly dangerous but its not on the same level as motorbike road-racing or air races (although I’m not aware how many serious of fatal accidents the latter sport sustains).
It’s the spectator thing which is the real issue-an individual’s life is his (or hers) own to do with what he will. But if that activity also puts others at risk, then there might be a problem. On at least 3 occasions in NASCAR (that I can recall) a car almost ended up in the stands (and there was a IRL incident involving Mario Andretti where he almost cleared the fence in T1 at Indy during a test). Eventually Murphy’s Law will manifest itself in auto racing, forever changing the sport for good or bad (heck it already did back at Le Mans 1955 where 90 people lost their lives).
In Canada, I’d never pay enough taxes on my cigarettes or alcohol to cover the costs of a liver transplant or cancer treatment. In the USA, conveniently, someone else foots that bill, and so the government would be less likely to ban those things - they generate revenue but have minimal costs (for the government, at least).
Of course, banning smoking and drinking would have huge costs too… manly quelling the riots that would erupt. But in general, I think governments should look at the cost-benefit ratio when considering whether something should be banned.
Consider something like a car seatbelt: A person may choose to not wear one, and accept all the associated risks. But since the cost of medical care for a crash victim who didn’t wear their seatbelt might be so extraordinarly high - that it would create significant savings for the government to just ban driving without a seatbelt altogether. This kind of logic makes a lot of sense in a place like Canada, and I mostly support it.
If the government has to clean up for your mess, then they should be allowed to regulate/ban those types of activities.
Surely though spectators exercise their free will and informed risk taking by attending a dangerous event as much as those participating in it? Nobody forces anyone to take part and nobody is forced to attend.
No we shouldn’t ban them. We all do realize that life is dangerous in itself. We can learn from what has happend and try to take steps to prevent a repeat. But accidents happen, in racing and when walking down the sidewalk.
As far as the poster that said tax them more? Really? What would that solve? If all the pilots and spectators had paid a hefty tax at the door are you implying that they would still be alive now? Or are you just advocating the re-distribution of wealth as the answer to everything?
