Larry W4CSC wrote:

Stephen Trapani wrote in
:

And how long should they wait before bringing a baby home to a normal
house? Right outside the door are dangerous roads and highways!

Stephen

What's this? Denial?

Being on a boat is much more dangerous, especially to a defenseless infant,
than riding in a carseat.

The denial is on your part.

You are not looking at the actual hazard which is much less in boating
than in driving. You are just accustomed to driving - it is a
necessary part of life for almost all parents, and so we accept the
hazard. It has been made safer with the addition of car seats and car
crash protection etc, but it is still dangerous. You are more
outraged by the smaller hazard in boating because it is not necessary.

Just like refueling a gasoline automobile is dangerous. We have all
kinds of rules for refueling a boat with gasoline, but we do cars all
the time, and people are so used to it that they stand there and smoke
while they do it.

An infant is not defenseless if there are parent(s) who are vigilant
and aware - whether the hazard is a bear in the woods, or crime in the
streets or the hazard of drowning.

Plus I don't think you are really processing what people are saying
about how they are dealing with an infant. A child before they walk
is much less at risk than a toddler - generally they stay where you
put them. If a mom is 'wearing' the child, the child goes where the
mom goes - on board or overboard. If the child is in a car seat tied
down in the boat, it's no more unsafe than a car seat in a car. In
either case, the safety of the child depends on the safe operation of
the vehicle.

The crunch comes when the child is more mobile. We have had toddlers
on the boat and we require that all persons wear PFDs unless they are
below in the cabin with a parent (these were grandchildren). The
child sometimes pitched a fit, but they wore the PFD anyway. One of
them was sitting on his mom's lap while she steered, and he unscrewed
the wheel. But it is a sailboat, and that was pretty quickly fixed.
It wasn't life threatening.

The really dangerous part is getting from the dock to the boat.


grandma Rosalie