During my recent efforts at skiing and getting quite nervous at the number of people I saw being carted off on a daily basis, either by helicopters or ambulances to a hospital, I decided to research how dangerous skiing was.  What surprised me is that it fell a lot further down the list of dangerous sports than a number of sports I take part in!  The number one most dangerous sport in the world, and I certainly don’t take part in that, is base jumping.  That has quite a high fatality rate which I am not surprised about, where if people jump off rocks and try and glide with parachutes or even smaller bodysuits these days and avoid hitting other rocks or landing too hard!  The second most dangerous sport is cycling followed by running.  At first thought you may think they are very healthy and indeed they are.  I did not go into the statistics, but no doubt a lot of the danger in those sports involves motorcars and being hit and injured by a motorcar while you are running or riding your bicycle.  That will obviously give you a claim in South Africa against the Road Accident Fund, but that is not much consolation!  It is just a reminder that statistics are always fascinating, and that some of the healthy things you do are dangerous in their own way – even walking on the side of the road can be dangerous, as we know, not to mention shopping at Sandton City during an armed robbery - that occasion, that happens infrequently but does happen, when an armed gang runs in and holds up a jewellery shop.  I don’t think on the whole though that it is any excuse not to do them, but it is no wonder that cyclists are known as “organ donors” in South Africa, given the driving on our roads.   

I don’t like riding a bike out on the streets and prefer to ride around a gated community, but not everyone lives in a gated community with a little less, and slower traffic in it.  I think because you run at a slower speed you almost have more time to react to a bad driver than you do as a cyclist and to me, running is a lot safer than cycling.  Both cycling and running, although it is very boring and the scenery does not change unless you are looking at a video screen, can be done indoors or at your local gym.