Billabong XXL Wipeout of the Year Video just came out.

Yikes! Some of them do look rather gnarly. But, are they… really? Is surfing all that dangerous after all?

If so, how come old age pensioners with wobbly guts can (a) surf in the Eddie and (b) not die when they do?

Billabong XXL wipeouts – Stab from Stab on Vimeo.

The British government recently dismissed a leading medical advisor from its panel after the doctor made a factual public statement saying horseriding was more dangerous than the party drug ecstasy. (also know as E, pills, round ones, Gary Ablets) He was looking at the numbers, and concluded by working out how likely you are to be hurt/killed compared to participant numbers. By that rationale, surfing, even giant wave surfing, with a handful of deaths reported worldwide per year (max) comes up as a positively benign activity compared with golf, par example. 4000 humans pop their clogs per year on the golf course in the US alone, cheerleading accounts for thousands of hospital visits, with the most dangerous sport being lawn bowls, which kills thousands of people across the world every year.

So if you want to do something gnarly, radical and extreme, how about a hit of golf, a spot of horseriding or a game of lawn bowls. And when you’ve finished are feeling slower, older, fatter and less mobile, assuming you’re not dead, then why relax with a less risky, slower paced pass time like doing backflips out of the lip on set waves at macking Mav’s?