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by jandrewrogers 4 hours ago
The number of deaths tell you relatively little about the risks because almost all of them are preventable. If you don't ignore the myriad highly visible warnings, the risks are below the noise floor. You take a bigger risk of death driving to the National Park.

For example, dozens of people die every year due to heat stroke and dehydration in places like Death Valley, Joshua Tree, and White Sands. The National Park Service posts many large signs warning you to bring sufficient water that thousands of people ignore. Most people that ignore the warning don't die but you could eliminate the risk entirely by simply staying hydrated.
1 comments
collingreen 4 hours ago
You keep using numbers to underpin your comments. The parent's point is that it's important to have access to numbers like this. From where I'm sitting it seems like you very much agree despite your comments sounding like disagreement or deflection.
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jandrewrogers 1 hour ago
The National Park Service post signs in specific areas that keep a running tally of how many people have died in that spot. I don’t have any objection to those signs, they are kind of interesting in a train wreck sort of way. Despite that, the numbers on those signs go up every year.

Knowing about a death in the last 24 hours doesn’t matter because it doesn’t materially impact the prevalence of the behavior that is the root cause of the deaths. At the same time, the government has an interest in not letting random employees with hot takes talk to the media with incomplete or erroneous information; this also is a liability. That is standard operating procedure almost everywhere, I just find it weird that we care here, particularly when it has zero relevance to safety.

No lives are being lost or saved by this policy. As an observation, I think few people would accept the kinds of policies that would be required to actually reduce deaths in National Parks.

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sanktanglia 52 minutes ago
Sometimes the wild animal that attacked a person is still in the area, but I agree with you in general the signs are not helping prevent deaths
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