Here is a good read below. Hope the link works. Statistics about paddling risk and whitewater. the article includes a comparison to other outdoor activities, including all registered recreational water craft (motor boats and others that are registered) and even swimming. What is missing is a comparison between ww and other forms/environments of paddling.
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Driving to/from the put-in and take-out is definitely the most dangerous part of the trip - especially for someone like me who is running relatively easy stuff, but driving a couple of hours to get there.
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The risks go up exponentially with the difficulty. I have been in some life threatening circumstances and done plenty of rescues. At one time I was starting to regularly run Class V rapids. I started to meet people with dead friends and plenty of injuries. It was very sobering. Now I am a Class III boater.
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Location. Location. Location.
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So, a little riskier than being around hunters but only half as risky as bicycling? Sounds about right. 
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While statistically driving is more dangerous It hasn’t really played out that way for me through the years. i don’t know anyone who has been killed driving to or from the river. Sometimes our own experiences don’t match statistics and give us a skewed sense of actual risk.
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ppine, like you I have become more risk adverse as I’ve gotten older and dialed it back… Most of the class V rapids I ran have now been down graded to class IV rapids by the new generation of ww boaters. A lot of the original guidebooks in the southeast and mid atlantic were written by open boaters. Anything that could swamp an open canoe was considered class III. Early on, there was an exploratory aspect to boating but now ww runs that have become more standardized, in part to releases, better info on water levels (on-line gauges), and the community has become more knowledgeable.
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So I was biking down a rapid,
Alaskan tires will buoy you,
as I was peering down the sites
of my Beretta Model 2,
you know this Drift-boat-bike coot hunting
within a Class V drop gets hairy,
and it has fried the Mac Book tables
of dozen Allstate actuaries.
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I can hear Dylan singing this … it would be old (young) Bob so there would need to
be another dozen or so verses or so. Danger! No one makes it out alive.
I have known someone who has died WW kayaking. https://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/Accident/detail/accidentid/3699 It’s dangerous enough to kill you. From what I recall reading there were many paddlers this day, river was showing fury, that is what it’s about.
Liza was one of my first friends when I retired from USCC(usn) and repatriated to MN. I joined the ISK she was a member (of everything outdoors) She moved from Mn out west. Good athlete. Water Worshiper.
Good memories. My wife(rip) and I attended her memorial service. St Croix River back in Midwest.
Peace J
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People here seem to greatly under estimate the dangers associated with fast water.
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Twice I have put on a river minutes after a person or persons drowned right after the put-in point. In one case it was two people, in the other one.
I have also been on rivers and paddled right past the point at which a person drowned the very next day, and one the following week.
So there is certainly risk. On the other hand, I have had two friends struck by cars and killed while road biking.
Oh boy! There’s a challenge. Sort of a Tangled Up in Blue Leopard Skin On Frame Pillbox Canoe thing, eh? Mental machinations begin.
And, on a more somber note, I’m sorry for the loss of your friend. I guess many of we paddlers, hang around the water long enough, might experience this. I have, too.
Time to remember our old Pnet friend Walt, isn’t it? Whitewater can be dangerous and sometimes fatal, no doubt about it.
But so can flatwater. To tell you the truth, I have a greater sense of danger (as an open boater) crossing the mouth of a large bay on a northern lake where I’m not certain the wind and waves will hold off. That is a situation in which if the weather changes rapidly I might not be able to get off the water fast enough. Getting swamped well off shore, not be able to swim the distance in cold water, recover boat and necessary gear, and where to be stranded without it could be fatal - I find that a bit spooky. Whitewater can be dangerous and looks it. Big open water crossings can be dangerous and it often doesn’t look it. (And, indeed, might not be - but you don’t know what the weather might do.)
Objectively, which is the greater hazard; the one you go into with your eyes open, or the one that might catch you unaware?
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My experience is basically identical. I pursued lifesaving skills after being very close to numerous drownings (in time and location). Best friend killed by a logging truck while bicycling. I won’t road bike. I’ve been very close to gunfire many times and I fully respect that risk. Overall the summary chart seems reasonable to me.
@PJC - Objectively, which is the greater hazard; the one you go into with your eyes open, or the one that might catch you unaware?
I think the statistics show the size of the hazard in either case, but there seems to be some sort of prestige factor associated with WW risks. I checked the motorcycle fatality rates and they make WW look safe but no one calls riders brave, they call us crazy or stupid.
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Though I don’t ride I, like almost everyone I’d guess, have had friends through out life that were motorcyclists. By the time I got to my mid twenties I’d had a few friends die and most had “laid it down” a time or two. And its not crazy or stupid - its an activity that they enjoyed greatly that has its risks and a learning curve. Those I know now have been riding for decades without incident.
There certainly are risky activities we engage in, like motorcycling, driving, and all sorts of occupational hazards that are much much more dangerous than paddling under any conditions. Accidents from these activities are more likely to be serious but its also riskier because we spend so many more hours engaged in them. I wish I’d spent as much of my life paddling as I have roofing, driving, operating machinery, snow making (think 330V electricity, 250psi water in fire hoses going to a 400lb fan/compressor on wheels that you roll around on steep icy grades at night if its below 26 deg. - what could possibly go wrong?) etc. And I’m no more a risk taker than most others, less than many - I’d guess almost all of us have spent large portions of our lives doing stuff that’s more dangerous than paddling, white water or flat.
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Theres’ something about putting a motor between a guy’s (ususally) legs, be it cycle, jet ski, ATV or whatever, that can mess up judgment. I used to think there was something in 2 cycle exhaust, but it happens with 4 cycle motors too.
And then there’s alcohol. Two college kids in an overloaded canoe, shortly after ice out, dressed in forestry gear and boots … they didn’t have a chance.
In WV today I pulled the plug on one river (Birch) and went and ran another (buffalo creek). Water levels were shooting up very quickly. Sometimes changing plans is the best plan.
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I went into the AW Accident Database for the states that I usually paddle (CT, MA, NH), and it was a little sobering. The have been fatalities on several of the rivers that I regularly paddle, which are not the big class IV runs. Most of the cases on these easier rivers seem to be less experienced paddlers either on their own or on step-up trips. High water often plays a role. Not sure if that makes me feel more comfortable or not. I wouldn’t consider myself inexperienced, and I am pretty careful about step-up trips – always have been, which is why I am still basically a class II (easy III) paddler. Higher water definitely takes easier runs up a notch. Plenty of fatalities on the big stuff too, and I agree that open water can be just as dangerous.
No doubt about it – sh*t happens.
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After 2-1/2, maybe three days of continuous steady rain, the bony, grinding creeks of local river and creek have looked…awesome! But, wishing to find my gettin’ long-in-the-tooth self a little further down the tracks, and, maybe, perhaps river another day, I…
When those bucolic stream strainers
submerge from site of eye,
and those “must make” moves
become micro-Eddy’s “make-or-die,”
and as the cubic feet per second
geysers logarithm off the chart,
I find it’s time to do my “banking,”
test not coroner at his art.
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