School students and international tourists need to be made aware of rip current dangers

Leading beach safety expert Dr Rob Brander believes that school students and international tourists need to be taught to recognise danger signs in the surf such as rip currents and to not just rely on swimming between the flags to ensure their safety.

Associate Professor Brander, from the University of New South Wales, said the red and yellow flags were an extremely effective way to keep people safe, but Australia had a big coastline and it was not possible to patrol every stretch of beach.

Dr Brander told the ABC this week “it is rare for people to drown between the flags, but we simply don't have enough flags.

"There are so many unpatrolled beaches around that are easily accessible and trying to get people who choose to swim at those beaches to not go in the water or to be safe or to drive a fair distance to find a patrolled beach is hard.

"We have to motivate people to be safe somehow."

Dr Brander believes that school students and international tourists should be targeted, advising “we have to be a bit more creative to get people to swim between the flags and to recognise dangerous conditions when they see them.

"We hear the message to swim between the flags so often that we kind of switch off, and there's a dangerous complacency about swimming at unpatrolled beaches.

"If you don't understand things like rip currents and dangerous breaking waves, and you are not a good swimmer, you are at such incredible risk when you swim at an unpatrolled beach.

"We have to motivate people to swim between the flags and give them information about what to avoid on an unpatrolled beach or at least what they should be thinking about when they are on an unpatrolled beach."

Queensland Tourism Industry Council Chief Executive Daniel Gschwind said the Federal Government could issue beach safety information to tourists at the point they applied for their electronic visa.

Gschwind advised “the Government has to balance it against privacy concerns and other issues, but we think it may be an appropriate touch point to give people some basic information.

"Just as they are provided with some legal information, some transport information, there is also perhaps an opportunity to convey some safety information."

Images: Purple dye shows the flow of a rip current at Sydney’s Tamarama Beach (top) and rips at Sydney’s Bondi Beach with the well-known Backpackers Express in the foreground and another rip further up the beach (below). Courtesy of  Rob Brander. 

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