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Extreme sports and kids... 21-May-2015 At 9:18:22 PM Wendy

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On 21/05/2015 patto wrote:
>On 21/05/2015 One Day Hero wrote:
>>Really? Has this been tested?
>One
>case was settled before trial

That being an american case though
>
>On 21/05/2015 Wendy wrote:
>>I'd like to see that go down in a court. Suddenly, no one would teach
>>anyone anything. Supervising a learner driver? Nope. Teach your kids
>to
>>ride a bike? Nope. Volunteer to coach football? Showing someone how
>to
>>use power tools? Nope. Maybe origami. People might still feel ok teaching
>>their mate origami.
>If you don't think that you owe others a duty of care in these activities
>then you are kiding yourself.
>
>>(and it may well apply to club trip leaders, but maybe not general members?)
>It can most definitely apply to general members.
>
>Have a read about the tort of negligence and duty of care. Wikipedia
>is a good start.

I know all about negligence and duty of care. What I am suggesting is that if we start applying legal duty of care to a whole bunch of non professional activities, we are going to end up on a very slippery slope to not ever doing anything. When one is not in a situation of relying on a professional, in a kinda contracted relationship, one needs to take responsibility for assessing the person we are relying on. When you get in a car with a mate, if you don't like their driving, you should speak up or get out. You dont wait for an accident than sue them for negligence. If you get on a bus and the bus driver drives negligently, well, you should probably still speak up or get out, but the duty of care is very different as they are presenting themselves in a professional capacity and you have contracted their services in buying a ticket expecting them to drive as a reasonable bus driver would.

Sometimes you are placed in situations where you don't know much about the field the person is claiming expertise in. You can still exercise other skills in assessing their competence. Can they explain what and why they are doing things? Does it seem logical? What can they tell you about their history doing this? Is there anyone who can confirm it? In the case of children, I would say the onus on the person teaching increases, because the capacity of the child to judge the situation is more limited, even when they are friends or family. In fact, in the best world, all people offering their serivices to teach in any capacity would be safe and competant in what they were teaching, I imagine we have all seen situations where this was not the case. I saw a bunch of trainee guides at the Mt recently that gave me the heebee jeebees. In the Tito case, they were apparently instructors. So the duty of care thing should apply whether he was 12, 20 or 60.

People do need to take some responsibility for themselves otherwise we will all just have to do origami. And I'm not that into origami.