I've been seeing this argument all week. I'm getting rather sick of it.

[deird1]

The Context
A kid was killed by an alligator at Disney World. The pond he was wading in had a sign saying "no swimming".

The Argument
The parents were at fault because
a) It's Florida, alligators are everywhere, and everyone should know this.
b) There was a "no swimming" sign, which should have clued them in that alligators were likely to be in the area.

The Rebuttal
a) I am Australian. I live in a very dangerous region of the world, where we don't put on gumboots without checking for spiders. We expect to find snakes, dingoes, sharks, and crocodiles in most outdoor settings.
I would not have expected there to be alligators in this pond.
Yes, I'm aware that Florida has alligators, but Queensland has crocodiles, and I still expect hotels to be crocodile-free. Crocodiles can't generally get over fences. Alligators can. I didn't know this.

b) If I see a sign that says "Danger: Crocodiles! No swimming!", I expect there to be crocodiles around, and that I shouldn't go swimming. If I see a sign that simply says "no swimming", sans explanation or exclamation marks, I assume it's roughly equivalent to "keep off the grass" - ie: the maintenance crew are trying to stop you from trashing the area. I certainly wouldn't expect wading to be dangerous.



People who keep making this argument? You kinda suck.

Comments

[deird1]

You make us all sound like Crocodile Dundee wannabes... :-p

I did consider rephrasing that sentence. :) My point was that in every outdoor setting, at least one of those is likely to apply. Sea? Sharks. River? Crocs. Outback? Dingoes. Bush? Snakes.

(I've never seen boots kept in the laundry, FTR - with one exception. Your house...)

[lydiabell]

Also, why should people from Nebraska, a thousand miles or so away from any coast, be expected to be savvy about a danger specific to the Southeast? I'm from pretty far inland myself, and while of course I know that there are alligators in Floria, I hadn't realized that they're in basically every imaginable body of fresh water! Including ones that the famously control-freakish management at Disney lets people splash around in! That's not something tourists can be expected to know.

[melannen]

I do generally expect a "no swimming" sign in an otherwise public area to mean "the water is dangerous" (although here it's more likely to mean pollution or riptides than giant prehistoric predators...) I would also, however, generally expect another sign that attempted to explain why it was dangerous.

Also I would expect any body of water in Disney World that wasn't fenced off to be reasonably safe to wade in even if posted No Swimming, because... Disney. And alligators can move fast on land too!

[lliira]

It is sad, but... I don't know how prevalent crocodiles are in Australia. In Florida, alligators are EVERYWHERE. Seriously everywhere. You aren't supposed to let your dogs swim in any ponds, you most certainly are not supposed to let your kids swim in them. And it's not possible to keep them out of where they want to be.

Disney should have put a "danger, alligators" sign up as well. But I do think the parents were at fault for not educating themselves about this. It would be like someone from Florida not taking a coat to New York in December and then complaining about the cold (something someone I knew actually did.)

[zeborah]

I've been to Orlando and saw no alligators, so they can't be EVERYWHERE. Nor did anyone warn me about them beforehand, or ask me if I saw any after, or anything. How is one meant to educate oneself about a danger one doesn't realise is a danger? You can't google a negative.

Also I once hosted someone from New York on a visit to my country, and I warned her it could get cold that time of year so bring layers. She (judging by our latitude and therefore assuming I meant "breezy") brought one thin cardigan and so (upon the warm nor'wester swinging around to a southerly straight from the Antarctic with no intervening landmass or warm sea currents like you get in the Northern Hemisphere) we had to go shopping. I may have privately rolled my eyes a little because I did warn her - but I also recognised that actually, she had no way of knowing that the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are that different, and no way of knowing what temperature range I actually meant when I said "cold".

Just like non-Florida folk have no way of knowing what "alligators are everywhere" actually means. One per square metre? One per square kilometer? Everywhere in rural areas? Everywhere in cities? Are there as many alligators as cars (and if someone's child gets hit by a car are the parents at fault because they should have educated themselves about how many cars are on the road, or do we recognise that parents already spend every waking moment trying to keep their children safe and happy and if an accident happens they're devastated enough without having literally the entire world debating whether it was their fault)? People make assumptions and think they understand risks and turn out to be wrong ALL THE TIME and mostly this doesn't kill them.

And yet none of anything I've just written makes a blind bit of difference. Screw who's "at fault". Why are people so fixated on casting blame? What is so important about doing that? Their child just died.

Their child. Just. Died.

It is sad. There's no "but". It's just sad. Full stop.

[deird1]

Yeah... what zeborah said.

I expect people to come to Australia knowing that we're a country full of nasty snakes and spiders. I don't expect them to automatically pick up their gumboots and bang them against something before putting them on, or to understand that you always walk through grass stomping loudly so the snakes will hear you. I'd also find it quite reasonable for a tourist to assume that a beach filled with lifeguards and Aussie kids was probably not going to have sharks.

I know that there are lots of bears in Northern US states. I would assume, however, without checking, that bears wouldn't be found in the cities - so would not bother bringing bear repellant with me to Chicago. Would I be correct to assume this? No idea.

I also am aware that you shouldn't leave food out at campsites if you don't want to attract bears - which puts me far and away above most Aussies, who wouldn't have realised this is an issue. I have no idea, however, about most other things that might automatically be done to deter bears from campsites - and, if I googled, I'd assume that most of the advice would be fictional; on a par with sophisticated "drop bear avoidance" techniques, such as putting a dab of vegemite behind the ears. This is because US television has informed me that everyone has their own personal bear rituals that sound dumb, and are usually about fooling the person they're talking to.

If I went to Florida, I'd know that they have alligators, and I'd think "okay, so I won't swim anywhere but swimming pools, and I won't go into any wild scrub areas". And then I'd consider myself to have given the matter due thought.

Expecting more research would be like expecting someone coming to Australia to research heatstroke, snake bites, bushfires, floods, how to find water in bushland, shark attacks, jellyfish stings, and poisonous spiders - all in detail. How would a tourist know in advance which are the actual bad dangers, and which won't be an issue?

[cereta]

Thank you. I spent a weekend with my mother throwing every bit of evidence at me from the gorilla incident (I'm from Cincinnati, so I couldn't watch five minutes of live TV without another story) that "proved" the parents were at fault. I finally had to tell her that I was Done with the topic. Full-on DONE. I am so tired of all these perfect parents (especially the ones without kids) analyzing every possible way to make things worse for people who have suffered a devastating loss. As you say, there is no "but" after that. DONE.