This has to be looked as a percentage, both to take into account the number of people driving vs climbing, but also as the amount of time you spend driving vs climbing....I'd say climbing.
There are a number of ways to reduce risk, one of the big ones is to reduce your exposure time. How many hours do people spend travelling in a vehicle per day vs time on the rock.
hard to compare the two. Apples and oranges. we all spend a lot more time driveing and some of us drink and drive especialy after climbing. The objective dangers of driveing are Huge. Lotta other folks on the road that can kill you at any moment. If all you do is sportclimb its more like driveing. Your injury possibilitys are mostly linked to lowering accidents or equiptment failure. Bouldering is like rideing a moped. basicly dosen't count unless you do highballs without pads. trad climbing and wall climbing are more like auto raceing. Lots of protective measures taken but the price can be high if you blow it. Alpine climbing is like raceing Moto GP. lots more chance to get hurt there. High altitude climbing is maby more like driveing in a war zone. You can be the baddest dude in the buisness and still get hit by a random roadside bomb or a sudden storm.
However, inherintly, there is a great amount of risk assumed when one engages in the sport of climbing because there usually aren't "little" accidents. Most climbing accidents result in moderate to severe trauma or death.
I think you've got it wrong. Seriously, how many times have you sprained your ankle, scraped your knee, or tweaked a finger tendon while driving? I'd say that injuries incurred in car accidents are far more likely to be "serious" (i.e. broken bones, paralization, death, etc.) than those incurred while climbing.
In my experience, most climbing accidents do not result in "severe trauma or death". They're just kind of inconvenient. But if you get hurt in a car accident, you're probably going to the hospital.
It's hard to compare the two, since we don't know exactly how many "climbers" there are and what "climbing" is defined as, but here are some stats about driving from http://www.car-accidents.com/pages/stats.html:
In 2005: 196,000,000 licensed drivers 6,420,000 were in accidents (3.3% of licensed drivers) 2,900,000 injured (1.5%) 42,636 killed (.02%)
That would mean 1 of every 5000 licensed drivers was killed in 2005 alone! I'm sure if you include all genres of climbing it may be similar; but for the average sport or trad climber I would have a hard time believing that 1 of every 5000 would die in a given year.
That would mean 1 of every 5000 licensed drivers was killed in 2005 alone! I'm sure if you include all genres of climbing it may be similar; but for the average sport or trad climber I would have a hard time believing that 1 of every 5000 would die in a given year.
Considering that the vast majority of "climbers" (i.e. people who call themselves such) climb plastic only and never touch real rock, I think you're probably right.
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