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Comment by theklub | Hacker News Reader

Reminded me of this one, deadly seemly little river in the UK... https://www.amusingplanet.com/2015/11/bolton-strid-stream-th....

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it's great to hear about these kinds of hidden dangers (immortalized by a wordsworth poem no less), but based on what's stated in the article, the sign shown in one of the photos seems to make the mistake of exhorting without informing (and persuading):

> "danger. this pool is very dangerous. submerged rocks. diving, jumping & swimming prohibited."

it seems it should say something more like

"danger. hidden, swift undercurrents will pull you under and trap you to certain death. avoid the water."

but maybe that one pool only has submerged rocks as a danger, and not undercurrents. even so, it could be more informative: "danger. hidden shallow submerged rocks make diving, jumping & swimming here deadly." but that makes the inclusion of swimming puzzling.

San Francisco has these signs on Ocean Beach:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/c_nilsen/2823013166

They emphasize the concrete fact that people have actually died from the danger, which seems a little closer to your suggestion.

yes, that's better, but in that case, it's about possible death (how possible?), rather than probable death, so it's (intentionally?) ambiguous.

it seems to lack information about when rip currents are most likely, and more to the point, the statistical likelihood of death from entering the water at all.

i'm personally not a strong swimmer so would avoid it anyways, but that information might more readily dissuade others by simply putting trust in the reader to make an appropriate life or death decision.

Death is not probable. A lot of people swim and surf there. The majority survive.

exactly, the sign's information is incomplete, so it's likely completely disregarded due to contrary social proof rather than through reasonable assessment.

rip currents apparently kill less than 100 people per year in the US (mostly weaker swimmers who panic).

I vaguely remember the advice being to swim sideways until you're out of the current. Is that valid?

That depends. In some cases it's best to swim parallel to the shore. In other cases it's best to just tread water and let the current circulate you back to the beach.

https://www.usla.org/page/ripcurrents

Best is to turn on your head and understand the rip. In most cases the rip is very narrow, like 2-5 meters. For an experienced surfer the rip is an extremely good thing, it's a free lift to bring you out to the surf. But inexperienced swimmers panick and try to fight the rip. You cannot fight the elevator, you just have to step out of it. And some rips make turns. You really can predict how the the rip flows by observing the coastline, the wind direction and the waves coming in. When I was surf instructor the most important thing was to explain how this works.

It's the deadliest beach in the state.

I’m wondering if the languages reflect who has died there?

Spanish and Mandarin make sense based on SF demographics, but the Russian (?) seems out of place. Although I know the Outer Richmond has a good size Russian population.

But if you at what languages SF offers information in, it usually also includes Japanese, Tagalog, Vietnamese and others, so I’m curious why they aren’t included.

It is indeed Russian and Russian people have a culture of enjoying swimming, sometimes combined with consumption of the alcohol. Combined with the fact that in Russia swimmable seas do not have rip currents, I would not be surprised if Russians disproportionately contributed to the sad statistics.

Is that a cultural difference, such that the UK tone for "proceed and you may die" takes for granted (with, presumably, support from their legal system) that the reader is at fault if they ignore the phrasing used? The US is particularly vulnerable to lawsuits seeking vengeance, and spends a lot of time agonizing over phrasing that is defensible against both literate and illiterate people. So it could be possible that the phrasing is correct for the UK, but not for the US. I'm not sure, though!

It's human nature to (1) distrust authority, (2) assume that authority is generally more nannying and risk-averse than you yourself are, and (3) want explanations consistent with your understanding of how the world works.

I don't think it's just an American thing.

I wonder about the second point. Is it human nature or a learned reaction we have because in our lives we experience authority as overly- cautious? First our parents, then our teachers, then the government (perhaps less so, depending where we live) are constantly telling us not to do things because they're dangerous even when odds of injury are relatively low.

So it's natural we're distrustful.

Human nature would like to disagree with you about the nature of human nature.

;)

I bet a dollar that the environment - nurture, as opposed to nature - will have a huge impact on a persons attitudes and beliefs and behavior towards authority.

Imho vast claims about human nature should be backed up with some scientific or well-sourced evidence :).

I don't know about UK-US, but I think I've noticed a difference between the UK and Germany in this respect: in the UK the sign tells people that something is dangerous and gives some hint of why; in Germany it just says "Verboten" with no mention of the danger, which in the UK would seem to be highly negligent and asking for legal trouble.

Something that injures a burglar could equally well injure a police officer, a fire fighter, a representative of the water company, ... it's amazing how many people can legally enter private property without the owner's permission. Of course one should be allowed to assume that such uninvited visitors are cautious professionals so you don't have to make everything childproof, but if you're aware of a serious danger yet can't be bothered to put up a warning sign ... you'd better have good insurance.

"it's amazing how many people can legally enter private property without the owner's permission"

Scotland has 'right to roam' so we can wander about pretty much anywhere (with a few sensible restrictions) and there are actually very few signs at dangerous spots - I can only think of a handful. The idea that you would go onto someone else's land, have an accident and then blame the landowner seems a very strange idea to me.

The legal system of common law and tort is pretty similar. The _culture_, on the other hand, is very different; no culture of "ambulance-chasing" (although in recent years it's been seen for road accidents, pushing up the price of everyone's insurance). No history of huge damages awards for trivial things. Not the same anti-government culture; the stream is probably owned by the local council or the waterways authority.

That particular sign is for a different section of the river, the strid is further upstream.

The strid: https://www.google.com/maps/@54.0038749,-1.9035917,394m/data...

The pool by the sign: https://www.google.com/maps/@53.9827603,-1.8865086,233m/data...

The resurgence pool at Porth Yr Ogof (Wales) is another innocuous looking stretch of water in Britain with a sad tally of deaths associated: http://www.ogof.org.uk/porth-yr-ogof.html

'Another sinister danger in this cave is the resurgence pool, where the water leaving the cave is forced through a narrow passage, in doing so it has scoured out a 7 m deep pool with underwater ledges, this coupled with the strong undercurrents created by the flow of the water has made this the most dangerous location in any British cave. In this short section of cave 10 people have drowned all within the sight of daylight, the dangers here should not be underestimated, signs in the cave before the pool warn of the danger and direct you to alternative exits.'

that is both interesting and terrifying. thanks for sharing. Hopefully someday a documentary crew finds a way to explore the underneath part.

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