PERSONAL WATERCRAFT STUDY (Fall 98)

On May 19th, 1998, the National Transportation Safety Board published an abstract of its Final Report on Personal Watercraft Safety. The abstract was brought to our attention by one of our Associates and was available on the MAC web site three days later in the "New News" section. (Web readers may click on and go directly to the abstract.) The report was based on information collected by the NTSB from 49 States and Territories. The Board analyzed 814 of the 1997 reported accidents and all of the 1996 accidents.

The safety issues discussed were:

• Protecting personal watercraft riders from injury

• Operator experience and training, and

• Boating safety standards

Conclusions included

• Eighty four percent of the operators had no boating instruction

• If more operators were trained, the accident rate would be reduced

• Operators of rented personal watercraft had less personal watercraft experience than did operators of privately owned personal watercraft.

• The study highlighted the problems of operator control during off-throttle steering situations. Some portion of the control problem may be attributed to the operating design of personal watercraft.

• Evaluate personal watercraft designs and make changes to improve operator control and help prevent personal injuries. Consider items such as off-power steering, braking and padded handlebars, and operator equipment such as personal flotation devices and helmets.

• Develop a checklist for boat rental businesses to use for evaluating a person's ability to operate a personal watercraft.

Enact or revise recreational boating laws to require rental businesses to provide safety instruction training to all persons who operate rented personal watercraft; all operators should be required to demonstrate their ability to operate and control personal watercraft.

The study supports what experienced users of personal watercraft have known for years - there is a lack of control when the operator backs off on the throttle. The inexperienced operator does this when he or she perceives that he or she is in trouble, and then loses the ability to maneuver.

The report also highlighted the need for better standards for rental businesses. A number of businesses give no training and, because of the inexperience level of rental users, this is a critical omission. This has long been apparent to those experts involved in personal watercraft accident investigations.