Comment on Australia’s red and yellow beach flags can confuse tourists. Is it time to change them?

retro@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

• Zagorath@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  The effectiveness of the red and yellow patrol flags is unequivocal as there have been no recorded coastal drowning fatalities this summer or in the previous year between the flags.

  Oof. That is…not the slam dunk they think it is. The whole point of the critique is that evidence shows many people don’t realise they’re supposed to swim between the flags.

  Now, I’m not fully on board with the reporting of the Guardian here either. The studies they cite talk about people misunderstanding the signs and flags, but they don’t say anything about what people actually do in response to this. If they misunderstand the sign and then just ignore it and swim between the flags because that’s where everyone is anyway, then there isn’t much of a problem. If, on the other hand, the confusion causes them to either make a conscious decision to swim away from the patrolled areas, or to throw up their arms and go “well I dunno what I’m supposed to do” (and then either decide against swimming at all, or decide that swimming outside the patrolled areas is fine), then it’s a significant problem. But we don’t know, based on these studies, which of those is happening.

  The Guardian’s suggestion of using green flags is a silly one, but the study they cited just before that, where pictograms of a lifesaver were put on top of the classic red and yellow flag, could be a good idea to follow.

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