# Stupid tourists, Darwin will take your children! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 20, 2017, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604 "2017-03-20T12:34:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604/1 "2017-03-20T12:34:08Z")
When there are overhangs of snow, ice or both hanging off roofs and gutters, we put out warning poles, which are poles or planks with bright red warning tape on, leaning diagonally up against the wall. So people will walk around the dangerous area. These are “immediate danger” markings, meant to be there until the property owner can deal with the hazard. The father of this family was photographing their children playing inside the danger area, right underneath a second-floor overhang of snow on top of thick ice and metre-long icicles! I explained to him that those sticks were there to keep people out of a dangerous area and he shouldn’t let his children play there. He seemed to get it, he just went “yes” and “sorry” with a German accent, but pretty good pronunciation, so I thought he understood what I was saying. I walked on and about fifty meters down the street I looked over my shoulder. And they were at it again! He saw me looking and pulled the kids back, but it was pretty obvious that he had only processed “This makes local man upset” rather than “This involves a significant risk of my children being crushed to death” Nine times out of ten some tourist gets hurt or killed, its a German. I have no idea why, they just seem to have much less understanding that nature will kill you. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604/2 "2017-03-20T13:22:02Z")
People don’t understand dangers they aren’t accustomed to. Wouldn’t he have assumed : “worst case scenario, some snow fall on my kids and they’ll be a bit wet”? ETA : where are you from? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604/3 "2017-03-20T13:28:52Z")
I suggest less polite explanations and more shouting “Nein! Nein! Verboten!” ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604/4 "2017-03-20T13:51:11Z")
That is certainly at odds with my experience of Germans and rules. It is a stereotype but not without a crumb of truth. In the UK, traffic crossings and lights are purely advisory, even in London. I had to have the concept of “jaywalking” explained to me by an American as it made no sense. In Germany you will be berated for not waiting for green even on an empty street. However, the flip side of that is that kids in general are allowed much more freedom to roam and do dangerous things. I confess I don’t know how the two mindsets coexist but they do. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604/5 "2017-03-20T14:46:56Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I suggest less polite explanations and more shouting “Nein! Nein! Verboten!” Or [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CXcRXtaEtg&t=1m03s). Seriously, people just don’t get dangers that don’t seem intuitive to them because they’ve never seen or experienced the danger themselves, e.g. tourists in national parks feeding wild elk or moose not realizing how aggressive they can be; people swimming or boating near spillways or intakes, unfamiliar with the kind of suction they can develop; pretty much anyone working with electricity who has never been trained on the hazards. Even trained and professional first responders can lose sight of the big picture hazards and do things that are manifestly unsafe, like run toward an unconscious person without assessing the scene to see if their may be toxic or asphyxiating gas. I’ve mentioned to a few people that when sent to “country camp” (i.e. hard labor on an unregulated family farm) for a couple of summers as a child one of my tasks was to “beat down” grain in co-op concrete silos during evacuation (removal) with a broomstick in one hand and holding onto a clothesline lead in the other. People invariably compare it to the fun of playing in a ballpit or a sandbox, until I point out that standing on dozens of feet of corn or soya is basically like floating on quicksand, and during evacuation rotted volumes of grain a breeched, releasing both asphyxiating methane gas (fortunately usually in small volumes) and voids that can suck you down far enough to literally bury you, as well as releasing fine dust that is both a respiratory and flammable hazard. It’s basically the most hazardous environment you can work in short of a coal mine or burning building and to this day agricultural co-ops (which are largely exonerated from child labor laws and OSHA safety regulations) still put adolescent children in the silo _during evacuation operations_, which is a massive violation in the European Union. (The Europeans also require silos to be lined with food grade aluminum or stainless steel sheathing, essentially eliminating this sticking problem for the cost of a few thousand dollars per silo.) If you never seen a hazard, you don’t know better just as a small child doesn’t understand that you shouldn’t touch hot things until they get burned a couple of times. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![JcWoman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jcwoman/32/2889_2.png) [@JcWoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JcWoman)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604/6 "2017-03-20T14:55:13Z")
Speaking as an American, we aren’t all that great with such things either (in general). Perhaps a better approach would have been to sidle up to the guy, point up at the snowy roof to draw his attention to it and casually remark “hey how heavy do you think that is? Like if it fell on someone, would it crush them?” Shrug and walk away whistling. I bet that would force the little hamster wheel in his head to get rolling while not being so confrontational. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604/7 "2017-03-20T15:47:57Z")
Speaking as a Spaniard, if you did that to me I’d be left wondering what got the crazy woman. Our traditional approach would be more likely to involve grabbing the kids out of the way while describing the multitude of ancestral failings the supposed parent evidently demonstrates, perhaps accompanied by our hopes that the children will be adopted and therefore have a chance at better genetics. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604/8 "2017-03-20T16:18:56Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Speaking as a Spaniard, if you did that to me I’d be left wondering what got the crazy woman. Our traditional approach would be more likely to involve grabbing the kids out of the way while describing the multitude of ancestral failings the supposed parent evidently demonstrates, perhaps accompanied by our hopes that the children will be adopted and therefore have a chance at better genetics. in the US, putting a hand on someone else’s kid (barring immediate and obvious danger) will not end well for you. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604/9 "2017-03-20T16:19:40Z")
There are some reasonable explanations for this sort of behavior. Perhaps, for instance, the kids have sizeable insurance policies and are generally unpleasant. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604/10 "2017-03-20T16:44:42Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > in the US, putting a hand on someone else’s kid (barring immediate and obvious danger) will not end well for you. See your own parenthesis. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604/11 "2017-03-20T16:57:02Z")
I really think that no matter where a tourist comes from, when they get to their vacation destination they just leave their brains in the hotel. I really have to assume that when they are home they know how to drive and don’t do things like suddenly swerve across three lanes of traffic because they are missing their exit, or stand in the middle of the street to take a picture, or push into lines because their kid wants X, etc etc. Tourist season here is dangerous both to the tourists and to the residents, because so many of them don’t seem to have any sense. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604/12 "2017-03-20T17:10:52Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > There are some reasonable explanations for this sort of behavior. Perhaps, for instance, the kids have sizeable insurance policies and are generally unpleasant. That was my first thought as well. The second, he is an unhappy step father. ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604/13 "2017-03-20T17:25:27Z")
I am from Northern Norway. We’re having a bit of a tourist boom due to local astrophysics. And its not so much that they did not realize the danger because they are unaccustomed to it… it is that they traveled to a hostile environment 300 kilometers above the Arctic Circle, proceeded to ignore local warning signs, and then dismissed local people warning that this is hideously dangerous for their children. It is the sum total of it that I find pit-worthy. Foreign, quite hostile environment, ignore warning signs, ignore the concern of locals, let the kids play. I thought evolution would have fixed that by now. I mean, if I went to the Australian outback for some reason, I don’t know whats lethal in the environment (everything? It is Australia) but I wouldn’t ignore warning signs or the advice of people living there. And it is disproportionately Germans, who seem to possess an entirely unwarranted assumption of safety. I don’t know why. Maybe the place just looks civilized, maybe they expect official warning signs at every danger, maybe Germany is just so urbanized that they have forgotten that Mother Nature has psychotic episodes and should not be left alone with her children. ---
**Author:** ![ricksummon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ricksummon/32/3333_2.png) [@ricksummon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricksummon)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604/14 "2017-03-20T17:59:08Z")
You just need to make the warning a bit more explicit, that’s all: **ACHTUNG! Fallendes Eis wird Ihre Kinder zerquetschen! Wenn Sie dieses Warnung ignorieren, werden wir keinerlei Tränen vergießen!** (WARNING! Falling ice will crush your children! If you ignore this warning, we won’t shed a single tear!) ---
**Author:** ![steatopygia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steatopygia/32/3132_2.png) [@steatopygia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steatopygia)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604/15 "2017-03-20T18:02:56Z")
This does happen. Around 10 years ago I took care of a young girl, 18 YO or so, who was permanently paralyzed below the waist after having her back broken from falling snow and ice. It happened at a local ski area that has truly huge amounts of build up. Some areas are sort of marked as dangerous but not all. ---
**Author:** ![steatopygia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steatopygia/32/3132_2.png) [@steatopygia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steatopygia)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604/16 "2017-03-20T18:04:04Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Speaking as a Spaniard, if you did that to me I’d be left wondering what got the crazy woman. Our traditional approach would be more likely to involve grabbing the kids out of the way while describing the multitude of ancestral failings the supposed parent evidently demonstrates, perhaps accompanied by our hopes that the children will be adopted and therefore have a chance at better genetics. Exxxcelllent ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604/17 "2017-03-20T18:25:14Z")
> [@Grim\_Render](#): > > And its not so much that they did not realize the danger because they are unaccustomed to it… it is that they traveled to a hostile environment 300 kilometers above the Arctic Circle, proceeded to ignore local warning signs, and then dismissed local people warning that this is hideously dangerous for their children. There’s a book called _Death in Yellowstone_ comprised largely of stories about people doing exactly that in a hazardous area of North America. Some people are just clueless. Unfortunately, some of them put other people, including children, at risk. ---
**Author:** ![JcWoman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jcwoman/32/2889_2.png) [@JcWoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JcWoman)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604/18 "2017-03-20T18:56:46Z")
There’s a similar book about deaths in the Grand Canyon. Including but not limited to live action re-creations\* of walking backward with a camera to your face to get a better shot and falling off the edge. \*I’ve only ever seen that in Looney Tunes cartoons. ---
**Author:** ![Didactylos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@Didactylos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Didactylos)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604/19 "2017-03-20T19:01:49Z")
> [@Grim\_Render](#): > > Nine times out of ten some tourist gets hurt or killed, its a German. I have no idea why, they just seem to have much less understanding that nature will kill you. It seems to me whenever I’ve been somewhere you have to show some care and respect of the surrounding nature (the North sea coast here in Denmark, mountains in Norway, lakes in Sweden), the locals will tell us a few simples rules/tips. To emphasize the gravity of the situation they will then tell a sad story of some foolish tourists who did not heed these rules in such and such way, and died horribly. And the tourists in this story will inevitably be germans! ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604/20 "2017-03-20T19:29:27Z")
I recall a news article some years ago where a komodo dragon ate a German tourist. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-tourists-darwin-will-take-your-children/782604.md?page=2)