Bad thinking, poor journalism

My attention has been drawn to an article written recently by an Australian columnist called Jill Singer about the recent deaths in motorsport, in which the author accused race fans for their “complicity” in the accidents and said that “it surprised me that no one could admit they actually enjoy the inherent dangers of track racing. To do so would obviously expose the inner ghoul of spectators. Time and again I was told that people don’t watch for the crashes”. Hit by a barrage of criticism, notably from Mark Webber’s manager/partner Ann Neal, Singer did not question her beliefs but rather went onto the attack and claimed that motorsport causes road accidents and that it would be “a good start to stop glamourising motor sports”.

What a lot of tosh.

One must presume that Singer is paid to try to stir up trouble with her ill-conceived columns, although one cannot imagine that such arguments will really sell any more newspapers.

The first argument that fans watch the sport only to see accidents is simplistic and does not take into account any of the analysis that has been done over the years to try to understand why people risk their lives in dangerous activities, and why it is that people want to watch such things. It is clear from this that risk takers are not self-destructive by nature. They love the competition. Psychologists will tell you that daredevils have a desire to feel intense emotions and may also have a need to be distracted from everyday concerns. Psychologists argue that spectators watch events because they need to experience the thrill of fear in a controlled way, when they are not in real danger. Just like watching a horror movie. Does this mean that all movie buffs who are out for a thrill want to see real people chain-sawed by maniacs?

It is quite clear that very few people wish to see what happens when something goes wrong. Racing people understand that, although all too often general media coverage of such things adopts a different attitude. There is condemnation of a sport that can kill people.

Yet one rarely hears the same condemnation of mountain climbing or horse riding or any other dangerous sports. I don’t know why that is, except perhaps that such condemnation only ever comes when the accidents are in high profile events – and top-level motorsport is high profile.

And this is the key point about road safety. The high profile of the sport is used to great effect to spread the road safety message – and technology – that is aimed at reducing road deaths around the world. It is so easy to hammer out a few lines of ignorance and make wild claims, but clearly Singer has not done her homework. One assumes that she has never heard of the Decade of Action, the work of the FIA Institute and any number of campaigns that teams and drivers have been involved in promoting to spread knowledge and understanding of road safety.

At the end of the day the only conclusion one can draw is that she simply could not be bothered to do the legwork. It was easier just to spout ideas.