Re: [Paddlewise] Kids and PFDs

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 18:44:21 4, skimmer <skimmer_at_enter.net> wrote:
>
> I find Craig's response to my post about kids and PFDs to be
> utterly breathtaking. The folks proposing the regs in PA from the
> Fish and Boat Commission are the people counting the bodies and
> fishing them off the bottom, not a bunch of ignorant politicians.
>
>
This is why the regulators just keep on going. When I asked you just how far
you would be willing to carry this you are left breathless by my reply. But
you didn't say just how far you'd be willing to take it.

The regulators win on these issues because it's so easy to paint a label on
anyone who disagrees. No one wants to be portrayed as willing to stand by
while innocent children are wantonly killed by their own parents. Especially
when the means for saving them is so simple: everyone wears a PFD all the
time.

But I don't want to wear a PFD all the time. How will making me wear a PFD
all the time save kids' lives?

And trust me... I don't much care about the adults.

That Fish and Boat Commission of yours doesn't look like an elected body to
me. I'm guessing they are bureaucrats and expanding their domain and power
probably seems like a good idea to them. Especially if they can claim that
if it saves just one life it will be worth it.

And I can assure you that even if they passed a law banning every child
under 18 from every boat it would not save enough lives to keep them from
taking yet another step. There is always just one more life to save.

Passing laws against things is not the answer. If you don't believe me just
look at the "war on drugs" - which is where the "save just one life it will
be worth it" came from - and how well that has gone. Making everyone wear a
PFD all the time will work just as well. I have a house on a lake and I
watch people boat past with kids not wearing a PFD every day during the
summer. And this in a state which requires them on kids under 12 on every
vessel that's underway (and I have no issue with that).

Our kids wore their PFDs on deck every day of their lives for 5 years while
we cruised throughout the Pacific. But I didn't. I wore a harness every
nightwatch and so did my wife. But not a PFD. If one of us fell overboard we
would rather have been tied to the boat than floating safe as it sailed
away. And a PFD adds a lot of drag at 4 knots.

If you want to do some good then come over next summer and spend some time
telling those adults to put PFDs on their kids. I'd like to watch a bit of
that. But at least you'd be talking to the right people.


Craig Jungers
Royal City, WA
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