[chadgeidel]

I've ridden many many miles on a motorcycle and maybe one mile in a canoe and this statistic surprises me. I would have assumed canoeing would be much, much safer!

[ghaff]

That's partly because you travel so much more distance in a motorcycle per unit of time. (Probably at least 20x depending upon how the statistics were derived.)

It also points to another problem with this sort of data. While there are certainly deaths in challenging whitewater, a lot of canoeing deaths involve combinations like alcohol+no PFDs+cold water at night.

[baddox]

Funny, I was thinking the opposite: that canoeing would be significantly more dangerous per mile than motorcycling.

[chadgeidel]

I think of all canoe trips as "gentle trips on the lake" when I read this. I suppose most canoers think of motorcyclists as "that guy doing triple the speed limit on the crowded interstate"...

[baddox]

My thought was simply that people drown on the water, even when not doing a potentially tricky physical activity.