Boating accidents and enforcement
 

A couple of recent posts here and elsewhere got me thinking about boating safety. I think it is fair to say that the "cigarette boat" crowd gets more than its fair share of attention from authorities (sorry Troutly!). So, I decided to do a bit of research...

The USCG maintains records that contain all sorts of interesting accident data. You can do some browsing yourself over at Office for Boating Safety website: http://www.uscgboating.org/

One of the interesting things I found on this is that recreational boating fatalities are down in 2002. If you really want to have some fun, go to the "Statistics" section and download the Boating Statistics file. I took a look at the year 2000 report, the latest one available.

Some interesting tidbits:

Percentage of accidents that resulted in fatalities, by boat type:

Canoe / Kayak.................................65%
Rowboat..........................................5 8%
Open motor boat...............................8.4%
Houseboat......................................... 5.4%
Cabin motor boat...............................3.9%

The CG recorded 701 fatalities in 2000. 540 fatalities, or roughly 77%, came on boats between 8' and 21'. There were 45 fatalities on ALL boats (not just performance boats) in the 25' - 40' range, or roughly 6.4%.

More fun... out of the 429 fatalities that occured among propellor-driven boats, 328 (76%) came on boats that were powered by outboards, 49 (11.4%) came on I/O's, and 48 (11.2%) came on inboards. 14 deaths were on boats with "unknown" power. Must be all those maniacs running 28 Skaters...

Now, I'm just a dumb redneck, but I'm thinking that if our local water police spent less time busting the balls of the guy with loud exhaust, and more time monitoring and enforcing the rules for folks in smaller, outboard powered boats, not to mention canoes, rowboats, and kayaks, they just might be able to lower the fatality rate even further.

But what do I know... :rolleyes:

What of the snail boats..... or maybe just no one cares ;)

Thanks for the stats. That's very interesting to note where the majority of accidents occurr.