Rob Cookson wrote: >Now hold on a minute, did I read this right? Are you accusing the dealer of >gross negligence based on the statements we have seen here? Has anyone >spoken with the salesperson that sold the craft? Based on this you are >trying to figure out a way to "deal with" this particular dealer? Sounds >like a quick and speedy trial by email to me. Unless you have far more >information than you are sharing here I think you are being quite unfair. Debbie wrote: >The boat is an Oldtown Loon, probably 14 ft. No bulkheads. No visible >floatation. Nothing on deck other than a fishing pole under the bungees. >.. >He had purchased his boat the week before and was never told anything about >the hazards of cold water. He had no previous water sports experience. He >was told that his boat had "built-in" flotation and all he needed was a PFD. >He did not know anything about sprayskirts, pumps or paddlefloats. Rob, while I agree with your contention that a general "blame the dealer" mentality is ultimately bad for our industry, from Debbie's statement, I would say that the dealer was, in fact, negligent to some (debatable) degree. She said that she looked inside and saw no flotation. TheWetOne was told the boat didn't need any additional flotation. That's pretty gross negligence. Not saying anything would have been less negligent! It sounds like the guy did ask some questions at the dealership, but was told very little. C'mon, the dealer is in the business of selling kayaking gear; we can both agree on that. They missed out big time, not selling the guy a paddlefloat, pump, sprayskirt, and some float bags. Ralph Diaz also wrote: > I think we will have to put our heads together > to figure out the most effective way to deal with this with this > particular dealer. But I don't want to rush into anything without > thinking about it. Sounds like a pretty sane statement, doesn't sound like a "trial by email" to me. Debbie raised some very, very good points. She did not name the dealer, just raised some issues. Naming the dealer and calling for an open boycott would be a trial by email. Issues were raised that need to be addressed. The discussion and solution of those issues in this forum could quite possibly alleviate future regulation. Nobody said the dealer should be sued. The dealer should be educated to better educate their customers. The dealer is the first entity seen by the New Paddler. If the dealer as an education resource is bypassed, natural selection is going to kill a bunch of ignorant (ignorant: "they don't know any better") people, and THAT will result in regulation. Like you said, it all boils down to personal responsibility, but people need to be exposed to safety resources to be able to make safe (or not safe, for that matter) choices. If you don't have a clue about what is safe and what is not safe, then personal responsibility doesn't mean much. If you won't paddle with people who don't wear PFD's, do they know that you won't paddle with them because of that choice or do you just leave them wondering? I personally don't think that dealers should be legally liable for the good or bad choices made by their customers, but I do believe that they have a moral obligation to let their customers know that there are risks associated with kayaking. Shawn Shawn W. Baker 0 46°53'N © 2000 ____©/______ 114°06'W ~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^\ ,/ /~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^ baker_at_montana.com 0 http://www.missoulaconcrete.com/shawn/ *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Mar 06 2000 - 12:57:18 PST
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