Proposed mandatory PFD law
 

"Gene Kearns" wrote in message
How would you draft a "Federal" law, then. to cover all eventualities?
Locally the water temperature is well over 80 degrees Fahrenheit....
some days higher than the air temperature. Would you then require
both flotation and (properly buoyed) bottled water to prevent the
inevitable dehydration? Water, water, everywhere and not a drop to
drink????

Not to mention a combination satellite phone/VHF/GPS/EPIRB.

Proposed mandatory PFD law
 

"Jeff Morris" wrote in message ...

You have a good point. Florida leads the country in boating fatalities (over
the last 5 years), but is lagging behind in drownings. However, you make up
the difference by having the largest number of non-drowning boating fatalities,
caused by leading the way (by a huge margin) in collisions with fixed objects.

Clearly, while Florida may deserve an exemption for PFD's, they should be
required to build all bridges out of foam rubber.

I believe a realistic first step would be to prohibit the consumption
of alcoholic beverages by the operator of a power boat. (It is legal
to do so in Fla)

Do that, see if it doesn't effect the accident stats, and get back to
me on this mandatory PFD wearing crap. (+-5yrs)

I was both a Red Cross and Ocean Rescue lifeguard and I didn't need no
freaking PFD for either of them.

So, it is real simple, people going out in boats should know how to
swim. Contact your local YMCA or Red Cross for lessons. There really
is no excuse for failing to do so as even little, teeny, tiny children
are taught.

Perhaps we should make that bit of common sense "mandatory".
--
SJM

Proposed mandatory PFD law
 

"Don White" wrote in message ...

Not as crazy as you think. lots of people up here would like to see the
fishermen wear something like that ...especially during the winter season.
Water gets damn cold. Why just last week the lifeguards posted the water
temperature at 8 C at a very popular local surfing beach.

While my big $$, drysuit, "safety requirement" was intended to be
hyperbole, I have both a 3mil full, and a 2mil shorty wetsuit
(primarily for scuba). I would not hesitate to bring one, the other,
or both along if boating in the cold. Also, wetsuits will keep you on
the surface due to the buoyancy of the material and fulfill the
"function" of a PFD as well.

I think I paid $150 for the 3mil and +- $100 for the 2. Just look for
scuba/surf shop sales or google up some online dealers/factor directs
if you're interested.
--
SJM

Proposed mandatory PFD law
 

"Brian Whatcott" wrote
It's true; that's what many of us think. In fact, we have an expensive
public health care system provided by County Hospitals, who provide
indigent care. The expended costs are staggering.

Only for the indigent. A friend's kid wrecked his bike and was taken to one
of these hospitals. They may or may not have saved his life (he might well
have lived without them) but he lost the sight in one eye for lack of proper
care. They billed him over $40,000 for this service. He paid only a
fraction of it because he is indigent and somebody had stolen his wallet
while there but had I done the same I'd have to pay or loose my houses,
boats, and other property. BTW he was wearing a helmet.

The costs are staggering only because all medical care in the US is a rip
off.

Proposed mandatory PFD law
 

"DUINK" wrote in message
...
Wrong again.......all hospitals are required to provide emergency care,
regardless of financial condition or citizenship (part of CA's problem).
The
hospital can hound you for payment, turn your account over to a collection
agency, and charge everyone else more (including those who wear their
PFD's)
but they can't refuse to provide emergency care.

True, but you ignore the obvious - that this care is paid for by taxpayers
ONLY if the victim is penniless. If a who person can afford a $20,000
motorcycle has an accident he'd have pay for it himself - helmet or no
helmet.

Proposed mandatory PFD law
 

Lots more drownings in swimming pools yearly. Why not require all people in
swimming pools, both public and private to wear PFD's while in or around
pools? Stupid stupid stupid.

--


Keith
__
I'm still hot. It just comes in flashes.
"Karin Conover-Lewis" wrote in message
...
It would make about as much sense to require ALL persons in any building
higher than one floor to wear a safety tether at all times, since people
seem to succumb to gravity on a fairly regular basis. Down stairwells, off
of balconies and rooftops... The percentage of people who never fall out
of
buildings is irrelevant, using the same logic as the NTSB is applying to
boaters.

--
Karin Conover-Lewis
Fair and Balanced since 1959
klc dot lewis at centurytel dot net


"Dan Best" wrote in message
news:IhjSc.128667$eM2.104869@attbi_s51...
Earl,
2 of the 3 examples you cited were SMALL boat operators/passengers and
the third was struck by a boat. Believe it or not, not all boats are
this small. I'd venture to guess that most of the boats owned by
readers of this newsgroup don't fall into this category. It would make
almost as much sense to require PFDs to be worn by all citizens at all
times everywhere as to require them on all recreational boats at all
times.

Trying to write an intelligent law that would mandate the wearing of
PFDs only when it would be reasonable rapidly becomes an excercise in
futile complexity as you list all the possible conditions and
exceptions. There are as many conditions/situations where wearing a PFD
on a recreational boat is rediculous as when it makes good sense. Ya
gonna list them all?

Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:

The problem is there are just too many accidents/drownings where the
life
jackets are missing. Because of this the people who having to do the
resuces
and/or pull out the bodies start pushing such laws.

Reading my local paper Lake Simcoe (a non-great lake in Ontario) in
the
last
few weeks has had the following.

Boat found, man still missing lifejackets in boat. Assumed drowned,
still
looking.

Boat capsize, one man drown no lifejacket. Two men resecued holding
on
to a
single lifejacket.

Woman diver in training killed by boat not avoiding area defined by a
diver's
flag. It is believe the boat driver (not found yet) did not even know
what
the flag meant.

There were some more too. The problem is not that some people don't
like to
use the safety equipment, it so many don't bother without even a good
reason
not to. Example PFD too hot to wear? Get an inflatable.

Earl Colby Pottinger

--
Dan Best - (707) 431-1662, Healdsburg, CA 95448
B-2/75 1977-1979
Tayana 37 #192, "Tricia Jean"
http://rangerbest.home.comcast.net/TriciaJean.JPG

Proposed mandatory PFD law
 

Both!

--


Keith
__
If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
"Don White" wrote in message
...

"Gene Kearns" wrote in message
You've made a good point. Now, suppose that you are diving. You are
at one of the popular dive spots... a defunct NOAA tower 30 miles off
shore from Cape Fear, in the Atlantic Ocean. How would you mark your
boat to show that there were divers in the water? If you feel that a
flag is an appropriate warning, (1) is the flag, alone, sufficient and
(2) what would it look like?

--


** Ah.....the old commercial diver blue/white(official?) flag vs the
recreational (familiar) red flag with the white stripe.
Out at sea I'd use the blue/white version assuming mostly 'real' sailors
would be that far out.

Proposed mandatory PFD law
 

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On 12 Aug 2004 06:14:32 -0700, (Scott McFadden) said:

I believe a realistic first step would be to prohibit the consumption
of alcoholic beverages by the operator of a power boat. (It is legal
to do so in Fla)

But not a sail boat, of course :)

Just had a case this last weekend, off Tybee Island, GA, where a 25' boat
ran into an anchored shrimp boat at night. Four on boat the small boat. Two
with injuries and two lost overboard and later found by the Marine Rescue
Squad in a recovery. The operator was sited for operating while intoxicated
and further charges pending. Here in South Carolina if you cause a death on
the water due to intoxication, it is an automatic manslaughter for a start.

Leanne

Proposed mandatory PFD law
 

Dave wrote:
On Thu, 12 Aug 2004 09:51:18 -0400, "Vito" said:


The costs are staggering only because all medical care in the US is a rip
off.


Shouldn't be any surprise, but calling the high costs a "rip off" is just
plain simple-minded.

I call bull****. More to follow I'm sure...

The costs are staggering because for some 60 years this
country has adopted a series of policies that remove the usual market
incentives from this sector of the economy.

AH the mantra...the market knows best...the market knows best...
You poor suckers. You've been sold to the insurance companies and
you're so blinded by all this free-market horse**** propaganda that you
Americans get pounded over the head with from the day you're born that
you can't see it.


First, by making medical
expenses tax deductible we insured that doctors and hospitals would have a
built-in subsidy not available to most other providers of services.

It's not a service Dave, it's called "health care" We're not talking
about flogging burritos here.


Then
during WWII we exempted employer-provided health coverage from wage
controls. There followed a rapid expansion of this form of compensation and
period when unions negotiated more and more coverage at less and less cost
to the employee--eventually removing from the employee most of the cost of
buying this service by increasing coverage and reducing deductibles.
Coverage for salaried employees, of course, followed the union-negotiated
coverage.

I was waiting for it, and you delivered! Those goddamn unions eh Dave?
We should just line all those *******s up against a wall and...Oh wait
a minute, didn't we fight against some Austrian corporal who did just
that? Hmmm...

Then we added government paid health coverage for the poor--again
with virtually no economic incentives to prevent overuse.

"Overuse"? What have you been smoking there bub? Who the hell wants to
go to the doctor? SICK PEOPLE DO Dave. Jeezus

Now we've added a
further subsidy for prescription drugs. And to make matters worse, many
countries have price controls on prescription drugs, which requires US users
to bear a disproportionate part of the cost of developing new drugs.

Do you really think that the US is the only place in the world where
research is conducted into the development of new drugs? Ah I forget,
you're American, and America is the centre of the friggin' Universe
isn't it?

The effect of all these subsidies and controls is just what you'd expect.
The decision to seek medical care has little or no cost to vast numbers of
people,

That's a good thing Dave, but then you're so blinded by ideology that
you can't see it. People shouldn't lose their homes or savings or their
lives because they can't pay cash for medical care. Quite frankly your
system is inhumane.

so you get overuse

simplistic flawed conclusion from faulty premises

resulting at vast sums of money being thrown to
doctors, hospitals and employees of both.

which of course would be the normal course of events considering that
health care is a people intensive enterprise


People will go see a doctor for a
hang-nail because it doesn't cost them anything. There was an article not
long ago recounting how the major activity for many Florida retirees is
going from one doctor to another to the point where the doctor's office is a
major center for socializing.

Okay, my mistake. I shouldn't have responded at all. You've been
drinking haven't you.

And of course when you have vast sums of money being thrown at a single
service the cost of that service rises.

The only way these costs are going to be limited is by giving the patient
some incentive to limit use.

OR we could just ask tax-whiners such as yourself to stop whinging

And in the current environment I don't see that
happening at any time soon. With the baby boomer generation reaching
retirement age the demand for more medical freebees paid for by the other
taxpayers will only increase. So we can look forward to a continued
environment in which most of the Mercedes and Rollses in the parking lot
have MD plates on them.

So you resent the fact that someone who spent perhaps a dozen years in
University and many many dollars learning an art and a science that
saves people's lives, gets remunerated at a level commensurate with
their skills.

Go sail your boat whinge-boy and bitch about how hard done by you are.

Proposed mandatory PFD law
 

Work on your sentence structure, eh!

"prodigal1" wrote in part:

Go sail your boat whinge-boy and bitch about how hard done by you are.