Australia has some pretty strict laws around fencing pools and water features, requiring them to be fenced when deeper than 300mm (and very strict and onerous rules about the nature of the fencing). This applies to private or public water features. However, public water features also require life guards present during operating hours.

If you as an owner, a professional, or even the labourer circumvent these rules and a child dies in the pool, you will likely be criminally charged.

These laws started to be introduced in the late eighties as pools started to be more common place. So I was curious about how these laws had effected drowning deaths since they were introduced. Turns out that drowning deaths in pools for kids under 4 have decreased 5% per year for the last 20 years [0]. That's about 500 kids lives saved in twenty years at the expense of every pool in the country being fenced - about 1.6 million pools. (Australia has the highest per capita private pools in the world.)

At an average cost of about $5k for a pool fence, you could suggest saving each child cost about $16m.

Drowning deaths in other age groups and other locations have not really changed in that time.

Even then, I have never seen any natural waterway, river, creek, beach or whatever being fenced, not even man made natural ponds in public parks.

[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S132602002...

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timr 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Those laws sound similarly onerous -- though not identical -- to what we have in many US states. A depth of 300mm is...well, let's just say that's aggressive (11")...but we also have strict rules about the fencing that goes well beyond what would qualify as a normal fence [1]. And yes, there are penalties if you knowingly circumvent the rules and someone dies (though I don't know if these are criminal. There's probably always a way for a grandstanding prosecutor to make it stick.)

> Turns out that drowning deaths in pools for kids under 4 have decreased 5% per year for the last 20 years [0]. That's about 500 kids lives saved in twenty years at the expense of every pool in the country being fenced - about 1.6 million pools.

OK, well...it's a (big) assumption that the laws are the reason for the decline, and moreover, that every part of every rule you described is necessary for the declines.

That's the fundamental problem with these kinds of things -- the "if it saves even N>1 lives!" crowd appears, ignores causation, and ratchets up the strictness of rules -- never the other way around. So you end up with fencing rules around 11" inch-deep puddles of water, and full-employment programs for lifeguards, when maybe one or the other would have been sufficient. Or something else. And maybe next time, they will want to fence the fountain at the local park.

Beyond that, I don't like to engage in "value of a life" debates, because there's no upper bound on emotion. But I should say that your numbers left out the cost of the lifeguards.

[1] Because heaven forbid that a motivated child climbs said fence. If your fence is insufficiently slippery, you will be liable! I'm not joking.

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cam_l 4 days ago | parent [-]

>strict rules about the fencing that goes well beyond what would qualify as a normal fence

Many of the rules are similar, because they are generally commonsense rules. Australia has a few extra ones. No more than a 10mm wide protrusion within 900mm of the fence externally or 300mm internally, unless the fence is higher than 1.8m. This includes trees. You cannot open the pool area into any internal area, regardless of door safety features, even if that internal area is a locked shed. You must have a minimum 750mm clear zone around at least 75% of the pool. You have to get the pool fence reinspected and recertified every 3 years (this may differ state to state). There are lots of fines for non-compliance.

>it's a (big) assumption that the laws are the reason for the decline

It was not so much an assumption as it it was a presumption, which if true sets a lower bound on the cost. Drownings were getting pretty common in the 90s in Australia as the pool ownership started to take off, and at that time private pools accounted for around 45% of the drowning detahs for kids under 5 [0].

I do not doubt that public safety campaigns and public pool safety are also a big part of the decrease, but add to that the massive increase in not just backyard pools but also population. The fact that the fatalities have decreased during this period points to a sizable proportion being from the laws.

>I don't like to engage in "value of a life" debates

I mean, no one does. I think they can be illustrative though. Taken individually, each pool fence that saved a life only cost the parents $5k. Well worth it. And altogether, while it may sound crazy that so much has been spent to save so few lives, in context the average family pool costs around $30-60k. So the cost of putting the infrastructure in place for the kids to drown in the first place is an order of magnitude higher than the mitigations. If you wanted to look at it that way..

Sure, better stats always help to focus appropraite spending. Though I wasn't really making an argument one way or the other (just sharing my curiosity), I would point out that it is really easy to discount the importance of a safety feature after it has solved the issue. Y2K anyone?

[0] https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/ABS@.nsf/2f762f95845417aeca2...

	▲	timr 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> Many of the rules are similar, because they are generally commonsense rules. Australia has a few extra ones....You have to get the pool fence reinspected and recertified every 3 years (this may differ state to state). Yeah, this kind of thing is exactly why NYC has scaffolding on half of the buildings, forever. Huge backlogs and high costs for "recertification" of situations that rarely ever change and carry miniscule marginal risk, due to aggressive laws. > It was not so much an assumption as it it was a presumption, which if true sets a lower bound on the cost. No, it's an assumption. There's a difference between "drownings might go down if we do something to limit them" (i.e. "presumption") and "this SPECIFIC SET OF RULES is therefore the thing we must do to save lives" (what is actually happening). > Taken individually, each pool fence that saved a life only cost the parents $5k. Well worth it. OK, let's be clear: if you build a pool and have kids, then I have no argument against you being required to put a fence around it. I agree with you that the marginal cost is trivial. Same thing for hotels, rentals, etc. Some regulations make sense. I start to disagree when these rules are applied to everyone, everywhere, in all circumstances. Many US states impose these rules on people who don't have children, don't live near children, etc. And of course, the comment that started this thread was demanding that we wrap every body of water, everywhere, with a fence "if a child is expected to be present". If a child comes wandering onto my (hypothetical) property and falls into my (hypothetical) garden pond and drowns, that's the fault of the parent. Particularly so if I've already got a fence around my property, live far away from people, or any number of other factors that sensibly mitigate risk.

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ghaff 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Although in the UK, from what I've seen, there is far more prevalence of life rings being available along rivers/creeks than in the US where I basically never see such a thing.