I agree with Popeye's point. Kiting can't compare with base jumping, freestyle MX, running with bulls, and a bunch of other sports where people get worked all the time, often with only one mistake. A handful of people are out there doing crazy shit with kites, but for the most part, it's chill unless somebody screws up, and that is usually because of a series of user errors, not because the sport is inherently dangerous. When done right, I think kiting is reasonably safe, just like cooking with raw chicken or driving a car. We accept the risks of kiting because they are largely manageable.

Making mistakes in any sports can get you injured or killed--hell, heart intensive sports like running, basketball, and tennis are probably a lot more risky than kiting in terms of heart attacks and strokes, given that a kite session usually doesn't do much to push your heart rate. People get waxed by lightning on the golf course in Florida regularly. All sports carry their own risks.

Kiting is extremely fun and cool, but if you want to be really extreme, climb the cliffs at Pointe-Du-Hoc through machine gun fire with German soldiers throwing grenades down on you.

If that is too much, take one fall behind a boat while trying to invert on a wakeboard or bust ass on a concrete half-pipe or a rail on a skateboard and you'll find out that kiting is not even the most extreme board sport around. Let's not portray ourselves as a bunch of hardcore bad-asses who eat bull sharks for breakfast and only bother to kite when a hurricane makes landfall at North Skyway. Frankly, we don't deserve that reputation as a group.

There are a lot of great kiters around here and plenty of em' like to go big. Still, jumping 20+ plus is one thing, but only a handful of kiters around here are really pushing the sport and taking the risks that go along with doing so.

A significant amount of the rest of us are just trying to have fun without injury and most of our sessions involve cruising around, busting some movez, and trying to develop skillz and have fun without unacceptable levels of risk. The average kiter around here, including me, is not trying to be the next Laird. We're no different than the legions of other people who are stoked to charge some sport and stay active, whether the sport is bowling, running marathons, or whatever. So let's enjoy the stoke without acting like we are the Delta Force of the sports world.