----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Lloyd" > We all > do dumb things in life. Some get us killed. And if you non-Victorians I get the impression from here in Switzerland that you in the States are getting bad press because of irresponsible people having accidents. Over here, we don't have the problem with sea kayaks, because there are too few of them, in fact, mine and 2 others that I know of. The situation is the same here with tourists climbing mountains unequipped, untrained, inadequate physical condition and completely unprepared for when nature suddenly gives a little growl and then these people get killed, or worse for the rescuers, hurt. The same polemic - "why should we pay?". Interestingly though, if you want to rent a powerboat or a yacht, you must show your skippers licence, otherwise no go. > knew the extent to which kayaks are rented out in this town to untrained > paddlers, you would be amazed that more of these type of incidents have > not occurred given our cold waters. Doug In France last summer we rented 2 SOT's to descend the Ardeche river. The people that rent the boats out say "you'll be fine, it's flat water". 1 hour downstream, the rapid was still interesting enough to have the French fire service (who do any inland rescuing) in the middle of the river with a power boat to fish out the kids and tourists before they drown. What's the answer to all this? Driving licences like cars and you only get one after a test. Then legislation that allows sale or rental to people that have the said licence. Is anything like that under discussion in the States? Kevin. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Apr 16 2002 - 10:49:28 PDT
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