5 ms·

Genuine question: is it about time that we start thinking about banning (most) swimming pools? Bear with me for a second. I continually hear tragic stories of

by scarmig 11y ago

Genuine question: is it about time that we start thinking about banning (most) swimming pools? Bear with me for a second. I continually hear tragic stories of them. A child drowning in front of their parents. Someone starting to drown, and accidentally drowning another person who tried to save them. Just the other day, I read a story of how at a bachelorette party the bride-to-be was jokingly pushed into a swimming pool, did the wrong fall reflex, and ended up a quadriplegic. Drowning is the single most dangerous form of activity for children. We're more than happy to ban guns, while they're not even close to as dangerous as swimming pools. Even traffic accidents come second as the cause for death for children, after swimming pools. (Note: I don't want this to be a debate about gun control, which FWIW is something I mildly support for safety reasons. And as soon as autonomous cars are on the road, I'm going to be first in line to want to ban the incredibly dangerous human-driven death machines.) I know, I know: swimming pools complete an idyllic image of summer, and in reality it will be a long while before it's even plausible we'd think about putting the most basic of restrictions on them. But cigarettes were once part of the image of the ideal gentleman, and now they're widely acknowledged as death sticks. And swimming pools might be nostalgic, but they're really death pits.

001spartan 11y ago
I don't accept this premise. Even if you ban swimming pools, that doesn't prevent children from drowning while swimming in the ocean, or lakes, or rivers, or even backyard swimming pools. All of those environments are just as much (or more) of a risk, and far more difficult to adequately cover even with the most well-trained lifeguards. Should we prevent children from learning to swim, or enjoying the water, even in a relatively controlled environment?
- scarmig 11y ago
  It's about limiting risk: kids can die both while driving a car and being a passenger of a car, but that doesn't mean it's inconsistent to ban child driving. For young children especially, drowning in pools is the leading cause of drowning, much more than natural settings, which are relatively rare (for young kids, bathtub drownings are next after pool drownings.) I said most, because I see a place for swimming pools that are monitored closely by lifeguards and that offer swimming lessons. I'm thinking more of private, backyard swimming pools.
sosborn 11y ago
> I continually hear tragic stories of them. Just remember that you don't hear the mundane pool stories where nobody gets hurt. And those exist in MUCH larger numbers. In my opinion, banning is often the wrong reaction. Yes, swimming pools can be dangerous. The solution is better education for those who use them.
AlphaGeekZulu 11y ago
I'd rather suggest to train children in swimming as soon as possible. Even if swimming pools would be banned, there are private pools, there are lakes and rivers and creeks and canals and oceans and shores, there are ships that sink and idiots that push you down a bridge. The drowning rates are especially high in countries, where people are not able to swim. I know this from the Sudan: people do not learn to swim in the desert (and not in the cities, because there are no water parks). Everytime a boat capsizes in the Nile (and this happens unfortunately too often) all of the passengers drown, just feet away from the shore, because they are unable to swim. A couple of years ago the entire national soccer team of Sudan died that way. Being able to swim is an absolutely necessary survival skill and kids should learn it before they start to read and write!
- Qantourisc 11y ago
  In Belgium kids are send to the pool at age ~7 until they are 12, weekly for an hour or so. And it's part of your education (but you don't have to pass it if I recall correctly but I could be mistaking).
  - Udo 11y ago
    It's about the same in Germany, swimming is part of the sports curriculum, and you have to pass. You're also encouraged to get certified for basic water rescue and things like that. Knowing how to swim is such a basic skill. One thing I really like about German pools and something that makes me really nervous when watching Americans: non-swimmers and little children should not even be in the deep pool. Most facilities in the EU have a dedicated shallow non-swimmer pool - and then there's a separate deep pool for "serious" swimming. Many also have an extra pool for toddlers. I'm somewhat puzzled how in the US small children and people with inflatable toys are all sharing one big free-for-all deep pool with the adults. That's the problem, in my opinion. If you're under a certain age or if you can't swim properly, you have no business being in a deep body of water.
nostrademons 11y ago
Banning's a pretty harsh response. I was gonna respond with "So are you going to ban cars?", but apparently you're okay with that. Most of the things that are worth doing in life involve some risk - getting on a plane, getting in a car, going to an unfamiliar neighborhood, doing any kind of sport or physical activity, letting your kids walk to a nearby park. It's not the job of the state to ensure that its citizens are perfectly safe. It is the job of the state to ensure that people have the information available to them to make informed choices about risks, and to ensure that people can't push risks off on other people who didn't sign up for them. Swimming, at least, doesn't pose the same risk to other people that guns and dangerous driving do.
morgante 11y ago
> We're more than happy to ban guns, while they're not even close to as dangerous as swimming pools. What? Guns cause over 3 times as many deaths as drowning.
- yellowapple 11y ago
  Not to mention that guns are actually meant to kill things (usually; some guns aren't, even if they're still capable of doing so), unlike pretty much all swimming pools (that I know of; I'd be concerned if there were swimming pools designed to kill things). Comparing pools to guns (or cigarettes, for that matter) is a stretch on the scale of at least 27 slinkies.
  - frogpelt 11y ago
    This is a valid point. You can't really compare purposeful murders to accidental deaths. It would be like comparing kids injured while jumping on a trampoline to kids injured while being beaten by an abusive adult.
- aftbit 11y ago
  Not of children under 14 - around 700 children under 14[1] die from drowning in swimming pools, lakes, etc (non-boating accidents). Also according to the CDC[2], around 400 children in the 0-14 age range[3] die per year from all firearm related incidents. This includes suicides, homicides, and unintentional shootings. IIRC, when I was looking this up a few months ago, there's a sharp jump in homicides by handgun around age 17. [1] http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/water-safety/waterinjuries-factsheet.html http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/water-safety/wa... [2] http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_us.html http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_us.html [3] http://i.imgur.com/AUTgq.png http://i.imgur.com/AUTgq.png
arikrak 11y ago
> Drowning is the single most dangerous form of activity for children. We're more than happy to ban guns, while they're not even close to as dangerous as swimming pools. Even traffic accidents come second as the cause for death for children, after swimming pools. That may be true for children age 1-4, because they can move around but not swim. However, cars, falls, and poison are far more dangerous overall. Learning how to swim in a safe manner reduces the risk of drowning.
Animats 11y ago
Most newer swimming pools in the US don't have a "deep end".[1] [1] http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/morford/article/The-End-Of-The-Deep-End-The-swimming-pool-as-2603900.php http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/morford/article/The-End-...
- rtkwe 11y ago
  I've noticed that and find it really annoying and sad. I had a lot of fun in the deep end of pools especially diving in.
rhaps0dy 11y ago
Why not teach children how to swim in school instead?
JoshTriplett 11y ago
No. Kids shouldn't be around a pool unless they either know how to swim or are being taught how to swim, but that's no reason to stop trained swimmers from swimming.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> Drowning is the single most dangerous form of activity for children. Drowning is not a form of activity. It might be the single most common cause of accidental death (just checked, it seems to be, but only for children aged 1-4 [0]), but that's different than being the most dangerous activity. If you are comparing danger of activities (like, say, swimming) you would compare the frequency of the thing you are looking at the danger of (e.g., death or injury) for people who engage in the activity (e.g., deaths per hour swimming) vs. other activities. > We're more than happy to ban guns Well, not in America. (Whether we should be or not; firearms regulations are extraordinarily politically controversial in the US as a simple matter of fact.) > I know, I know: swimming pools complete an idyllic image of summer, and in reality it will be a long while before it's even plausible we'd think about putting the most basic of restrictions on them. Actually, that's not true. We have put restrictions on them, such as California's Swimming Pool Safety Act, requires anti-drowning safety measures for all residential pools for which building (incl. remodel) permits are issued after January 1, 2007. [0] http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/leading_causes_of_injury_deaths_highlighting_unintentional_injury_2011-a.pdf http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/leading_causes_of_inju...
atmosx 11y ago
> Genuine question: is it about time that we start thinking about banning (most) swimming pools? You should really watch "Finding Nemo[1]". Unfortunately there's so much you can do, to protect a kid. Passed a certain point, if nothing happens life is not interesting anymore. [1] http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Finding-Nemo/60027705?trkid=222336 http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Finding-Nemo/60027705?trkid=222...
15charlimit 11y ago
> we're more than happy to ban guns Not in parts of the world that actually care about personal freedom and the responsibility that goes along with it.
yellowapple 11y ago
> Genuine question: is it about time that we start thinking about banning (most) swimming pools? Genuine answer: no. > We're more than happy to ban guns Define "we". > And as soon as autonomous cars are on the road, I'm going to be first in line to want to ban the incredibly dangerous human-driven death machines. After we just had a WiReD article on here last week about how hilariously insecure current-generation cars are? I'm sticking to my '99 Chevy Blazer, thank you very much; if my car's outlawed, then I'd much rather be an outlaw than trapped in an incredibly dangerous computer-driven death machine (especially if you're advocating for a ban on human-driven vehicles, which implies that it would be illegal for me to take manual control of such a vehile - thus further implying a lack of physical controls and therefore an outright inability to override the computer when safety requires it). > But cigarettes Swimming pools, unlike cigarettes, are actually good for your body. There are numerous health benefits to swimming in general in terms of the cardiovascular activity involved without the joint damage associated with other cardio workouts like running, biking, etc. > in reality it will be a long while before it's even plausible we'd think about putting the most basic of restrictions on them. Define "most basic". Quite a few public pools that I've been to require children to pass swimming tests, for example (usually an ability to tread water for a given amount of time, usually a few minutes), will impose height restrictions on children, etc. > And swimming pools might be nostalgic, but they're really death pits. Oh please. You want to ban bicycles, too? Lots of people crash those things at sufficiently-high speeds to cause serious injury. And why stop there? Let's ban everything that might cause death. Trees can fall down and kill you, so let's ban those. Kitchen knives can result in you being cut or stabbed (either by yourself or someone else), so we should all cut our food with spoons instead. Kids jumping on trampolines might miss the trampoline on their way down, so we should ban those death machines, too, while we're at it. Planes crash and disappear all the time, so we should shut down the airlines and turn all of Earth into a no-fly zone. You might trip and fall while walking, so let's get everyone those electric wheelchair/scooter thingamajigs while mandating that everyone shall wear helmets and protective padding at all times. Children sometimes suffocate in their sleep over simple things like their blankets and beds, so we should require all babies to sleep on hard, sterile surfaces. Dogs maul children sometimes, so let's exterminate the canine species en masse. How far down the slippery slope do you want to slide? Personally, I'd rather there be a pool at the end of the slippery slope than your proposal of hard ground.
bbcbasic 11y ago
Traffic accidents would cause more deaths if it wasn't for speed limits, driving instruction and testing, seat belts, car safety devices etc. Perhaps we just need more checks and balances in the swimming pools. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Also without pools where would most of us learn to swim?

by scarmig 11y ago

001spartan 11y ago

I don't accept this premise. Even if you ban swimming pools, that doesn't prevent children from drowning while swimming in the ocean, or lakes, or rivers, or even backyard swimming pools. All of those environments are just as much (or more) of a risk, and far more difficult to adequately cover even with the most well-trained lifeguards. Should we prevent children from learning to swim, or enjoying the water, even in a relatively controlled environment?

scarmig 11y ago
It's about limiting risk: kids can die both while driving a car and being a passenger of a car, but that doesn't mean it's inconsistent to ban child driving. For young children especially, drowning in pools is the leading cause of drowning, much more than natural settings, which are relatively rare (for young kids, bathtub drownings are next after pool drownings.) I said most, because I see a place for swimming pools that are monitored closely by lifeguards and that offer swimming lessons. I'm thinking more of private, backyard swimming pools.

sosborn 11y ago

> I continually hear tragic stories of them. Just remember that you don't hear the mundane pool stories where nobody gets hurt. And those exist in MUCH larger numbers. In my opinion, banning is often the wrong reaction. Yes, swimming pools can be dangerous. The solution is better education for those who use them.

AlphaGeekZulu 11y ago

I'd rather suggest to train children in swimming as soon as possible. Even if swimming pools would be banned, there are private pools, there are lakes and rivers and creeks and canals and oceans and shores, there are ships that sink and idiots that push you down a bridge. The drowning rates are especially high in countries, where people are not able to swim. I know this from the Sudan: people do not learn to swim in the desert (and not in the cities, because there are no water parks). Everytime a boat capsizes in the Nile (and this happens unfortunately too often) all of the passengers drown, just feet away from the shore, because they are unable to swim. A couple of years ago the entire national soccer team of Sudan died that way. Being able to swim is an absolutely necessary survival skill and kids should learn it before they start to read and write!

Qantourisc 11y ago
In Belgium kids are send to the pool at age ~7 until they are 12, weekly for an hour or so. And it's part of your education (but you don't have to pass it if I recall correctly but I could be mistaking).
- Udo 11y ago
  It's about the same in Germany, swimming is part of the sports curriculum, and you have to pass. You're also encouraged to get certified for basic water rescue and things like that. Knowing how to swim is such a basic skill. One thing I really like about German pools and something that makes me really nervous when watching Americans: non-swimmers and little children should not even be in the deep pool. Most facilities in the EU have a dedicated shallow non-swimmer pool - and then there's a separate deep pool for "serious" swimming. Many also have an extra pool for toddlers. I'm somewhat puzzled how in the US small children and people with inflatable toys are all sharing one big free-for-all deep pool with the adults. That's the problem, in my opinion. If you're under a certain age or if you can't swim properly, you have no business being in a deep body of water.

nostrademons 11y ago

Banning's a pretty harsh response. I was gonna respond with "So are you going to ban cars?", but apparently you're okay with that. Most of the things that are worth doing in life involve some risk - getting on a plane, getting in a car, going to an unfamiliar neighborhood, doing any kind of sport or physical activity, letting your kids walk to a nearby park. It's not the job of the state to ensure that its citizens are perfectly safe. It is the job of the state to ensure that people have the information available to them to make informed choices about risks, and to ensure that people can't push risks off on other people who didn't sign up for them. Swimming, at least, doesn't pose the same risk to other people that guns and dangerous driving do.

morgante 11y ago

> We're more than happy to ban guns, while they're not even close to as dangerous as swimming pools. What? Guns cause over 3 times as many deaths as drowning.

yellowapple 11y ago
Not to mention that guns are actually meant to kill things (usually; some guns aren't, even if they're still capable of doing so), unlike pretty much all swimming pools (that I know of; I'd be concerned if there were swimming pools designed to kill things). Comparing pools to guns (or cigarettes, for that matter) is a stretch on the scale of at least 27 slinkies.
- frogpelt 11y ago
  This is a valid point. You can't really compare purposeful murders to accidental deaths. It would be like comparing kids injured while jumping on a trampoline to kids injured while being beaten by an abusive adult.
aftbit 11y ago
Not of children under 14 - around 700 children under 14[1] die from drowning in swimming pools, lakes, etc (non-boating accidents). Also according to the CDC[2], around 400 children in the 0-14 age range[3] die per year from all firearm related incidents. This includes suicides, homicides, and unintentional shootings. IIRC, when I was looking this up a few months ago, there's a sharp jump in homicides by handgun around age 17. [1] http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/water-safety/waterinjuries-factsheet.html http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/water-safety/wa... [2] http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_us.html http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_us.html [3] http://i.imgur.com/AUTgq.png http://i.imgur.com/AUTgq.png

arikrak 11y ago

> Drowning is the single most dangerous form of activity for children. We're more than happy to ban guns, while they're not even close to as dangerous as swimming pools. Even traffic accidents come second as the cause for death for children, after swimming pools. That may be true for children age 1-4, because they can move around but not swim. However, cars, falls, and poison are far more dangerous overall. Learning how to swim in a safe manner reduces the risk of drowning.

Animats 11y ago

Most newer swimming pools in the US don't have a "deep end".[1] [1] http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/morford/article/The-End-Of-The-Deep-End-The-swimming-pool-as-2603900.php http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/morford/article/The-End-...

rtkwe 11y ago
I've noticed that and find it really annoying and sad. I had a lot of fun in the deep end of pools especially diving in.

rhaps0dy 11y ago

Why not teach children how to swim in school instead?

JoshTriplett 11y ago

No. Kids shouldn't be around a pool unless they either know how to swim or are being taught how to swim, but that's no reason to stop trained swimmers from swimming.

dragonwriter 11y ago

> Drowning is the single most dangerous form of activity for children. Drowning is not a form of activity. It might be the single most common cause of accidental death (just checked, it seems to be, but only for children aged 1-4 [0]), but that's different than being the most dangerous activity. If you are comparing danger of activities (like, say, swimming) you would compare the frequency of the thing you are looking at the danger of (e.g., death or injury) for people who engage in the activity (e.g., deaths per hour swimming) vs. other activities. > We're more than happy to ban guns Well, not in America. (Whether we should be or not; firearms regulations are extraordinarily politically controversial in the US as a simple matter of fact.) > I know, I know: swimming pools complete an idyllic image of summer, and in reality it will be a long while before it's even plausible we'd think about putting the most basic of restrictions on them. Actually, that's not true. We have put restrictions on them, such as California's Swimming Pool Safety Act, requires anti-drowning safety measures for all residential pools for which building (incl. remodel) permits are issued after January 1, 2007. [0] http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/leading_causes_of_injury_deaths_highlighting_unintentional_injury_2011-a.pdf http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/leading_causes_of_inju...

atmosx 11y ago

> Genuine question: is it about time that we start thinking about banning (most) swimming pools? You should really watch "Finding Nemo[1]". Unfortunately there's so much you can do, to protect a kid. Passed a certain point, if nothing happens life is not interesting anymore. [1] http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Finding-Nemo/60027705?trkid=222336 http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Finding-Nemo/60027705?trkid=222...

15charlimit 11y ago

> we're more than happy to ban guns Not in parts of the world that actually care about personal freedom and the responsibility that goes along with it.

yellowapple 11y ago

> Genuine question: is it about time that we start thinking about banning (most) swimming pools? Genuine answer: no. > We're more than happy to ban guns Define "we". > And as soon as autonomous cars are on the road, I'm going to be first in line to want to ban the incredibly dangerous human-driven death machines. After we just had a WiReD article on here last week about how hilariously insecure current-generation cars are? I'm sticking to my '99 Chevy Blazer, thank you very much; if my car's outlawed, then I'd much rather be an outlaw than trapped in an incredibly dangerous computer-driven death machine (especially if you're advocating for a ban on human-driven vehicles, which implies that it would be illegal for me to take manual control of such a vehile - thus further implying a lack of physical controls and therefore an outright inability to override the computer when safety requires it). > But cigarettes Swimming pools, unlike cigarettes, are actually good for your body. There are numerous health benefits to swimming in general in terms of the cardiovascular activity involved without the joint damage associated with other cardio workouts like running, biking, etc. > in reality it will be a long while before it's even plausible we'd think about putting the most basic of restrictions on them. Define "most basic". Quite a few public pools that I've been to require children to pass swimming tests, for example (usually an ability to tread water for a given amount of time, usually a few minutes), will impose height restrictions on children, etc. > And swimming pools might be nostalgic, but they're really death pits. Oh please. You want to ban bicycles, too? Lots of people crash those things at sufficiently-high speeds to cause serious injury. And why stop there? Let's ban everything that might cause death. Trees can fall down and kill you, so let's ban those. Kitchen knives can result in you being cut or stabbed (either by yourself or someone else), so we should all cut our food with spoons instead. Kids jumping on trampolines might miss the trampoline on their way down, so we should ban those death machines, too, while we're at it. Planes crash and disappear all the time, so we should shut down the airlines and turn all of Earth into a no-fly zone. You might trip and fall while walking, so let's get everyone those electric wheelchair/scooter thingamajigs while mandating that everyone shall wear helmets and protective padding at all times. Children sometimes suffocate in their sleep over simple things like their blankets and beds, so we should require all babies to sleep on hard, sterile surfaces. Dogs maul children sometimes, so let's exterminate the canine species en masse. How far down the slippery slope do you want to slide? Personally, I'd rather there be a pool at the end of the slippery slope than your proposal of hard ground.

bbcbasic 11y ago

Traffic accidents would cause more deaths if it wasn't for speed limits, driving instruction and testing, seat belts, car safety devices etc. Perhaps we just need more checks and balances in the swimming pools. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Also without pools where would most of us learn to swim?