AllTheHardLandingsThatFit
BCFerriesVille
So.
BC Ferries AND Keith Baldrey are both (surprise!) telling us that we should just make like Bobby McFerrin when we find ourselves worrying our pretty little heads about the corporation’s record on ‘hard landings’:
“…Of course, four “hard” landings so far this year seems excessive. But BC Ferries responds that its fleet sails more than 187,000 times a year and averages about a dozen hard landings (of various degrees) a year, which seems to put things in perspective…”
Now.
Let’s dissect all of the spin runnin’ round in that single sentence, shall we.
as we have already discussed, there is the matter of the pure and unadulterated bullshit that is the term ‘hard landing’.
Specifically, the landing at Duke Point was a crash – pure and simple.
Second, there is the attempt to bamboozle with numbers.
187,000 ‘trips’ per year?
So what.
Over the last five years YVR alone has averaged more than 300,000 airplane ‘trips’ per year.
And if Vancouver’s airport had ‘only’ a dozen ‘hard landings/crashes’ in each and every one of those five years (i.e. 60 ‘hard landings/crashes’ in total) I’m pretty sure that the media and, in turn, the public would be screaming bloody murder
Third, there is the matter of all those ‘hard landings/crashes’ being put in ‘perspective’ by the good Mr. Baldrey.
Which had Chris Montgomery wondering if Mr. Baldrey had a comparable reference that was used to generate such a ‘perspective’.
Seeing none in Mr. Baldrey’s column, or in other media reports on the matter, Ms. Montgomery did something that Mr. Baldrey et al., apparently, did not.
Which was to call up the comparably-sized Washington State Ferry service and ask them how many ‘hard landings/crashes’ they have had recently:
The answer, from the polite folks in the communications department, who could easily have ignored a call that was not coming from a major newspaper or TV station, or even from the U.S., was as follows:
“Regarding the number of hard landings that Washington State Ferries have experienced in 2010 and 2011 – the answer is two.”
Perspective my ass.
Or maybe that should be someone else’s.
Ass, I mean.
_____
And, again, for those ‘shocked’ by both my language and my inference, it was BC Ferries and Mr. Baldrey who decided to wurlitzer the/their numbers and the/their ‘perspective’.
There is much more in Mr. Baldrey’s column that, in my opinion, requires Fisking before it becomes ‘conventional wisdom’…..That is coming.
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