Is it time to change Australia’s iconic red and yellow beach flags?

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Each summer season in Australia, thousands and thousands of individuals head to the seashore, and yearly, 1000’s are rescued by lifeguards or Surf Life Savers and even surfers or different bystanders.

Tragically, many individuals lose their lives on our coasts.

The purple and yellow flags, iconic to many Australians, are supposed to be a easy and straightforward to grasp message. They denote a protected and patrolled place to go within the water on the seashore.

Surfers are speculated to surf outdoors the flags, whereas others swim (or wade, or frolic) between the flags.

However for a lot of worldwide guests, the message is much less clear. They might not make sense to individuals born abroad. Analysis reveals worldwide college students typically misread what seashore flags point out, depend on visible cues like different swimmers, or assume calm water is protected.

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These flags are usually not common. Around the globe, seashore security is communicated in numerous methods, with totally different colors, symbols, messages, and even patrol programs.

Regardless of the numerous efforts of water security organisations, drowning charges proceed to rise in Australia, and other people born abroad make up a considerable proportion of those deaths.

The system isn’t working.

What do the flags imply, and why do they matter?

The purple and yellow flags have been part of Australian seashore tradition and security because the Nineteen Thirties. They’ve been marking the patrolled space of the seashore ever since.

The concept is that if somebody swims between these flags, they’re beneath the watchful eye {of professional} lifeguards and/or volunteer surf lifesavers.

Normally, the flags are positioned on an space of seashore away from rip currents – the fast-flowing, seaward channels of water chargeable for a median 26 drownings a 12 months and the overwhelming majority of surf rescues.

However current research discovered that about 70% South Korean college college students and 60% Japanese college students interpreted the purple and yellow flags as indicating a harmful space.

And a research performed within the Netherlands confirmed solely 3.4% of surveyed contributors accurately interpreted the purple and yellow flags. About 40% thought they denoted hazard.

These outcomes needs to be no shock. Different international security programs akin to street or office indicators use purple to imply hazard or prohibition, yellow for warning, and inexperienced as security or permission.

Even half of home Australian college college students surveyed thought purple and yellow flags marked a protected space, so surfers must also keep between the flags. Actually, surfers are usually not speculated to surf between the flags.

The worldwide image

Globally, seashore flag programs are usually not standardised.

As an illustration, in Brazil, Spain, and a few areas of the US, seashores use a traffic-light color system: inexperienced for protected, yellow for warning, and purple for hazard or closed situations. Portugal typically provides purple flags to warn of marine stingers akin to jellyfish.

In some northern components of Spain, yellow flags are typically used to mark designated “cooling off” areas the place individuals are allowed to swim or bathe to chill down, regardless of purple “hazard” flags additionally being in place.

The Worldwide Life Saving Federation recommends a world set of eight seashore security flags, together with the acquainted red-and-yellow for patrolled swimming areas, purple for top hazard, yellow for medium hazard, and black-and-white for watercraft zones.

In contrast to some nations, the federation explicitly discourages inexperienced flags to indicate “protected” situations, on the grounds that no seashore and even patrolled space can ever be fully risk-free.

Speaking seashore security

Even when individuals don’t know what the flag colors imply, in Australia seashore indicators typically say “swim between the flags”.

However analysis at Bondi Seaside in Sydney discovered that round 30% of overseas-born beachgoers misunderstood this message.

They thought “swim between the flags” meant solely individuals who can truly swim ought to go there. In different phrases, in the event that they weren’t good swimmers, they believed they need to keep outdoors the flags.

That is precisely the other of what the security message intends.

Translation instruments are usually not a dependable repair. A current research discovered key hazard phrases are incorrectly translated by Google Translate.

Take, for instance, the time period “shore dump” (which suggests a spot the place large waves can out of the blue break, and “dump” a swimmer underwater). This phrase is at present rendered in simplified Chinese language as “岸边垃圾场” (àn biān lèsè chǎng), which suggests “a spot on the shore to dump garbage”.

“Shore break” (which suggests the identical factor) seems in Korean as “해안 휴식” (haean hyusig), which means “shore leisure”. This creates critical dangers.

The place to from right here?

Redesigning the flags may assist.

A current research performed in Europe developed and examined a modified model of the purple and yellow seashore security flag, incorporating a pictogram of a lifesaver.

This research discovered including the pictogram almost doubled contributors’ right understanding of the flags.

Some specialists have additionally suggested that altering “swim between the flags” to “keep between the flags” might enhance the interpretation as a result of “swim” has totally different connotations in numerous cultures and languages. Some individuals may suppose it’s best to solely swim between the flags in the event you’re a robust swimmer or planning to swim laps.

Merely altering the colors of flags for Australian seashores is probably not sufficient.

The purple and yellow flags are tied to a century of lifesaving tradition, volunteerism, and neighborhood belief. However that legacy shouldn’t cease us from testing whether or not inexperienced flags enhance our seashore security communication.