When it comes to summer safety the numbers are staggering. Why are there so many unintentional fatalities?
Do people lose their “common sense” or is there a problem with their common sense?
And what if you had the wrong information in the first place?
It’s hard to imagine how anyone’s common sense could help them then.
But perhaps the biggest problem is that people rely too much on fear of the hazard instead of the risk of the hazard.
Fear tends to fade over time whereas the risk of going 60 mph or with water over your head remains constant.
The secret to summer safety is not to tell people what they already know, or “don’t do this” and “don’t do that”.
That part is common sense. It’s the complacency part that most people don’t know about.
And then, once they realize the problem, they also need to know what they can do about it…which is also not common sense.