"Michael Daly" writes:

On 22-Oct-2003, Mary Malmros wrote:

A license is a legal
requirement that may or may not exist for a particular sport;

A scuba license has no legal status. It is a feature that is
maintained on a voluntary basis by participants (including
retailers) in the sport. You can dive without a license
if you can find someone who will lend/rent you the kit. No
one can prosecute you.

There you go! You got a divine right to scuba.

it's
not some kind of Get Out Of Jail Free card that divine providence
issues you that guarantees you'll never get a smackdown.

No, but in scuba, at least it's a sign that there are folks that
have the guts to say that not everyone is entitled to instant
gratification just because they think something's cool.

And it's all about guts, hmmmm? And nobody does anything like this
in kayaking? My local whitewataer outfitter won't rent a boat to
anyone except if they sign a pretty long form in which they have to
specifically initial statements that they have various skills.
Somehow, I don't think this is atypical. I doubt you'll find a
whitewater outfitter who'll rent a hardshell boat to anyone with a
wallet and a pulse who walks through the door.

If enough idiots put themselves at risk, it'll attract the
attention of the politicians and they'll lean on all of us.

I've heard this assertion many times, but not once yet heard a
convincing argument to support it...merely emotional rants about
lawyers and litigious society and so on. Show me a reasonably
parallel situation where similar events have caused "the
politicians" to "lean on" participants as a whole -- presuably with
the effect of restricting their activity -- and I will perhaps be
somewhat more inclined to believe that someone dying because he
can't do a self-rescue is going to mean the end of kayaking as we
know it. Meanwhile, here in Massachusetts, two women died kayaking
within the last couple of weeks, in what was quite likely a case of
insufficient preparation and/or skills and/or judgment. I have yet
to hear of any talk from any politicians anywhere who are deploring
the inherent dangers of kayaking and seeking to save paddlers from
themselves, and somehow I don't think it's gonna happen.

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Mary Malmros
Some days you're the windshield,
Other days you're the bug.