# I can't figure out how these daredevils keep from falling. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 14, 2014, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-figure-out-how-these-daredevils-keep-from-falling/681347 "2014-02-14T17:45:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2014, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-figure-out-how-these-daredevils-keep-from-falling/681347/21 "2014-02-15T18:41:51Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > uh…what I meant was that, yeah. like you said…there is a 100% mortality rate for everybody… > But for these daredevils, it apparently happens around age 18-21. What makes that apparent, exactly? ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2014, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-figure-out-how-these-daredevils-keep-from-falling/681347/22 "2014-02-15T19:46:20Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > What makes that apparent, exactly? Logic, basically. If you keep doing daredevil stunts, one day you’re going to slip. And nobody in those pics is over 21. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2014, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-figure-out-how-these-daredevils-keep-from-falling/681347/23 "2014-02-15T20:59:19Z")
Potential Darwin Award nominees. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-figure-out-how-these-daredevils-keep-from-falling/681347/24 "2014-02-19T02:15:51Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > As someone said on another site, there is a 100% mortality rate for people who do this for any length of time. Nonsense. Plenty of reckless fitness-minded people climb up sheer rock faces without support harnesses. It’s called [free solo climbing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_solo_climbing). There are naturally a number of accidental deaths that result. But to say that 100% of them will die is silly and hyperbolic. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-figure-out-how-these-daredevils-keep-from-falling/681347/25 "2014-02-19T02:23:16Z")
This lady in her finest LBD shows the boys how its done. 😃 very cool pics. I love the one on the Chrysler Building. > **[Daredevil photographer who travels the globe](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2562134/Tales-world-Daredevil-photographer-escapes-security-guards-climb-worlds-famous-buildings-poses-photos-dress.html)** > > Adventure photographer Lucinda Grange has been scaling famous buildings and structures taking pictures from the top for the past six years. those eagles/hood ornament things are very distinctive. > **[CoStar | # 1 Commercial Real Estate Information Company](https://www.costar.com/)** > > CoStar, the world leader in commercial real estate information, has the most comprehensive database of real estate data throughout the US, Canada, UK and France. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-figure-out-how-these-daredevils-keep-from-falling/681347/26 "2014-02-19T02:36:25Z")
For obvious reasons, I’d like to amend my previous statement to: But to say that 100% of them will die \*while climbing \*is silly and hyperbolic. ---
**Author:** ![mandala](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mandala/32/95_2.png) [@mandala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mandala)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-figure-out-how-these-daredevils-keep-from-falling/681347/27 "2014-02-19T05:32:12Z")
Speaking of insanity, sample [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDKN_RHukAU). ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-figure-out-how-these-daredevils-keep-from-falling/681347/28 "2014-02-19T05:42:22Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > [Stomach-churning pictures of Russia's death-defying 'skywalkers' | Daily Mail Online](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2559158/Stomach-churning-pictures-Russias-death-defying-skywalkers.html) > > Are people that do this stuff basically bored and suicidal? They really don’t care if they live another day or not? > . Watching these pictures made me almost physically ill. Each time I watch such daredevils on TV, I immediately think of their SO. How can they survive the stress of seeing their lover/spouse/whatever risk their life like that? ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-figure-out-how-these-daredevils-keep-from-falling/681347/29 "2014-02-19T05:54:11Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > The best known urban climber is that French guy Alain Robert they call Spiderman. While searching for pictures of him I noticed on google that another famous Frech climber, Patrick Edlinger, had died two years ago. Since he was still rather young, I wondered if he had fell to death and looked up on wikipedia. [QUOTE=chappachula] If you keep doing daredevil stunts, one day you’re going to slip. [/QUOTE] He did fell to death : at home, slipping in the stairs :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Stealth\_Potato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Stealth\_Potato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stealth_Potato)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-figure-out-how-these-daredevils-keep-from-falling/681347/30 "2014-02-19T10:33:23Z")
I’m an amateur frequenter of rock climbing gyms, and there’s really not too much mystery to how they keep from falling. None of the holds they’re maintaining in those photographs are especially difficult _in themselves_. I’ve ascended more difficult ones without thinking twice (or even once, if I’m honest) – with the caveat, of course, that I was maybe thirty feet from the floor instead of a thousand, and I was wearing a harness connected to an auto-belay or a belaying partner with a steady hand on my brake line. 😛 It goes without saying that I’ve also _fallen_ from such holds a hundred times, and even from lots of easier ones. These guys are taking stupid risks, but it’s a bit like, say, walking tiptoe on a beam six inches wide. I doubt anyone would shirk to try it if the beam were lying on the ground, and most would succeed nine times out of ten. But put the beam at the top of a skyscraper under construction and only an idiot would attempt it. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-figure-out-how-these-daredevils-keep-from-falling/681347/31 "2014-02-19T17:23:25Z")
Ya know, after looking at additional links here on this thread I have come to the conclusion it would be a lot easier and safer for any of those clowns to just take a course in Photoshop. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-figure-out-how-these-daredevils-keep-from-falling/681347/32 "2014-02-19T23:42:24Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > This lady in her finest LBD shows the boys how its done. 😃 very cool pics. I love the one on the Chrysler Building. > [Daredevil photographer climbs world's most famous buildings | Daily Mail Online](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2562134/Tales-world-Daredevil-photographer-escapes-security-guards-climb-worlds-famous-buildings-poses-photos-dress.html) Hmmm. A hot chick wearing next to nothing gets past a security guard. I’m not seeing a lot of derring-do here, but then I have a dirty mind. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-figure-out-how-these-daredevils-keep-from-falling/681347/33 "2014-02-20T21:22:37Z")
In case you think it is a young man’s game, here is [Steve Wynn](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWX-rT-_ank) doing it on top of his Vegas hotel. And on his [other](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vseVmGf-MBY) Vegas hotel ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2014, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-figure-out-how-these-daredevils-keep-from-falling/681347/34 "2014-02-22T03:30:02Z")
> [@xizor](#): > > In case you think it is a young man’s game, here is [Steve Wynn](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWX-rT-_ank) doing it on top of his Vegas hotel. > And on his [other](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vseVmGf-MBY) Vegas hotel He sitting on the roof of a building. Not dangling over the side by his fingertips. ---
**Author:** ![sparky\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@sparky\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sparky_1)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2014, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-figure-out-how-these-daredevils-keep-from-falling/681347/35 "2014-02-22T03:39:58Z")
Seems like a lot of Russian videos of this lately (a nice break from the car cam vids). Comrade, how my vodka and watch this. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2014, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-figure-out-how-these-daredevils-keep-from-falling/681347/36 "2014-02-22T08:09:54Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > He sitting on the roof of a building. Not dangling over the side by his fingertips. Well, considering Steve Wynn is almost legally blind, that alone would make this a somewhat daring adventure. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2014, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-figure-out-how-these-daredevils-keep-from-falling/681347/37 "2014-02-22T08:38:53Z")
I notice some are wearing gloves. That’s cheating, innit? ---
**Author:** ![Sr\_Siete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@Sr\_Siete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sr_Siete)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2014, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-figure-out-how-these-daredevils-keep-from-falling/681347/38 "2014-02-22T08:54:15Z")
I like to believe that they just photoshop out the safety equipment, for the sake of my sanity. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-figure-out-how-these-daredevils-keep-from-falling/681347.md?page=1)