Dangerous sports, activities or pastimes are selfish, put others at risk and should be discouraged, Do you agree?

Throughtout my life so far, many hobbies and interests have come and gone, but one seemingly dangerous sport has always had a large presence.

Formula One is a sport that originated in Britain over 60 years ago and is a huge part of our history and culture. There is no denying this is an extremely dangerous sport; 15 drivers were killed in accidents in the 1950's, twelve in the 60's, ten in the 70's, four in the 80's and two in the 90's. Danger is part of the appeal of Formula One and so will always be there, One major fact to comment on here is how the numbers have rapidly decreased and no fatalities have occurred since April 1994.

The Extreme safety measures that the sport has adopted have kept the excitement and adrenaline but eliminated deaths behind the wheel. Some of these features have filtered down into out road cars to improve safety there, such as traction control and strong carbon fibre body work.

Yes, there is no denying it is a dangerous sport, however it is too much of an important part of international culture to be discouraged. The aspect of danger means people have so much more respect for sportsmen like racing drivers and Formula One is such an intelligent, exciting and fascinating sport that it has a huge fan base across the globe. It is inevitable that when you have 24 cars racing around a track at more than 300km/h now and then they will collide, we cannot fully prevent that.

But if we did find a way to prevent crashes and eliminate all danger from sport, would we want to?
Taking the danger out of a sport or activity makes it much less compelling for spectators and participants and could be described as border-lining on boring.

The simple fact is if you take away the danger from a sport, you also take away a massive part of the excitement and the adrenaline. And in a sport like F1, taking away the danger is like taking the sun away from a summer holiday, it turns something so amazing into something completely average.


(Thought I'd share this with you all, wrote it as part of my creative writing in English)

Sri Lanka's Killing Fields

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/sri-lankas-killing-fields/4od

I watched the first documentary on this when it aired back in June 2011 and I was disgusted and shocked at what I saw, Channel 4 has used some brutal footage to portray the fact that the Sri Lankan Government is avoiding facing up to some serious war crimes, but they say it's justified.

The second documentary aired last month and recounts the events since the end of the civil war in the country. The commonwealth is shown to have forgotten Sri Lanka's crimes and welcomes President Rajapaska back into the national community with open arms.
The country appears to have investigated the accusations made by channel 4 however they avoid coming to any real conclusion in their reports and completed the process themselves instead of going through an indepent panel.

It's an interesting watch, that's for sure.

Bahrain, What to do?

I'm sure everyone is familiar with the story, there has been protests against the Government there, innocent civilians have been killed and the unrest in the region has led many to question if Formula One should ever return after last years race was cancelled. As the event approaches, more and more people are voicing their concern, from Racing legend Damon Hill to MP's in Parliament. Today the Guardian has published an article in which an anonymous Team Principle speaks out showing their concern for safety. This un-named boss who is said to be a Leading member of the 12 team principles went on to say "I feel very uncomfortable about going to Bahrain. If I'm brutally frank, the only way they can pull this race off without incident is to have a complete military lock-down there. And I think that would be unacceptable, both for Formula One and for Bahrain. But I don't see any other way they can do it." This shows the harsh reality of the situation there and amounts more pressure on the FIA to re think whether Bahrain is capable of safely hosting the race. From a pure, selfish point of view I'd want the race to go ahead simply because I love F1 and don't want to have to go another weekend without it. However I can't ignore the safety issues and the fact that a lot of Bahrain civilians want it cancelled because of recent protests, so in my opinion, it should be cancelled. Not only to protect the reputation of F1 but to also respect the needs of the public who are unhappy with their ruling.