"Keith" :

The NTSB in their bureaucratic wisdom is proposing a rule to require ALL
people on recreational boats to WEAR PFD's ALL the time. Here is a link to
the site, and the e-mail address to send your comments to. Since boating
has
continually gotten safer, I certainly see no need for this. I do support
the
PFD laws for kids and small boats like canoes, kayaks, and PWCs. If you
don't want to end up wearing a life jacket all the time, send it your
comments!

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
--
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