In 1998 the National Transportation Safety Board criticized the basic design of all personal watercraft: “Personal watercraft have no braking mechanism. They coast to a stop, and while coasting, there is no turning ability.” Tom Ebro, president of Aquatic Risk Management in Florida, concurs. “What makes personal watercraft so ultra-dangerous is the fact that it will not steer when you suddenly have a surprise and let off the throttle.” Unlike traditional boats “jet skis’ are rudderless. And when the throttle is off, a speeding jet ski is like a car on ice. It can’t stop. It can’t turn, and the driver has no control

According to the 1999 yearly report from the California Department of Boating and Waterways: “In collisions between personal watercraft and vessels other than pwc, the pwc operator was nearly 3 times as likely to be exclusively at fault.”

http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/opin/jetskis.html

taken from this site above

I am to a Jet ski user of 10 years and still to this day find myself
letting of the gas in close quarter situations which if u let off completely is a no steer conditon, its a natural reponse
cause u do it on almost anything else u drive.
I have both a jet ski and boat cert

PWC were banned from being near Fire Island, NY as of a couple of weeks ago. It is a big relief to me.

Now I won't have to sweat when one of them cuts a 90 degree turn directly in front of me. If I do end up clocking one in the head. with the pointy end of the boat....hey, he should not have been there.

The offenders are nearly always kids, but some brainless adults too. Too bad this ruins PWC fun for sane adults, but the industry should have worked with gov. agencies to come up with some logical guidelines before the ban happened. It is surprising that more PWC operators have not been killed.

I certainly hate to hear the term ban...anytime restrictions are created for one thing it seems that it eases the guidelines for restricting other things.... what's the answer ....?? I have no Idea...it is a problem though , have had several nervous moments over the yrs..

i can say that i have had 2 near misses with the damn things...one guy crossed the bow of my uncles 31 bullet as we were crawling through a bridge on the south shore of long island.. we all got soaked from his spray as he landed directl in front of us .. he then looked up and realized how close we were , about 6 inches away and probably $h1T himself... and the other in my own boat at about 40 mph in jones inlet... a notoriously snotty inlet.. waves were about 4-5 feet and some moron and his kid ( about 5 or 6) were unsure of the way they wanted to go.. all i saw was the top of his head then the crest of the wave then his head again ..chopped the throttles and cut the wheel ,,missed him by aq few feet......