RE: [Paddlewise] Kayaker on Potomac presumed dead

Craig Jungers makes a couple of important points: 

"One thing I've noticed is that the free children's PFDs that you now find at so many boat launches seems to be successful. People understand the risks to their children. They just don't think those same risks apply to them."  

Further, he states, "Amazingly enough my (entirely unscientific) study of jet ski operators (who outnumber boat operators on my lake by about 4 to 1) reveals that virtually 100% of them wear PFDs (versus zero% for boat operators). This result would have been counter-intuitive."

__________

It may have something to do with simple acceptance of rule and precedence.  (I remember standing on the transmission hump in the backseat footwell of our 1939 Buick on five hour drives from Larchmont, New York to Boston, Massachusetts, with my arms and chin just over the center seat watching traffic and the scenes that paraded by -- well before Interstates and even some parkways.  If there had been seatbelts in cars then, I guess I would have worn one, but it hadn't really been considered.  In 1929, when air travel across the English Channel became possible, my father didn't get a seat on one trip, but did make the flight holding on to one of the subway-style leather straps slung from an overhead center beam of the cabin for the convenience of overflow passengers.)  So there are rules -- little kids sit in the back belted into $400 car seats that change as the child grows, and adults (generally) wear their seatbelts -- because there's a precedence for doing it, as well as the practice's compliance with a law.  It's okay to be safe since everyone pretty much accepts it as a precedent -- and maybe as a law.

My guess re the counter-intuitive nature of PWC operators' acceptance of PFDs is that, right from the start, the ads showed operators and riders wearing fashion-statement PFDs.  There may have been a law, but, more importantly, there was an acceptance of these devices from the get-go; there was a precedence for PFDs, and, therefore, people wore them.  It was OKAY to wear them, and it became the fashion.

Dunno -- only guessing here, but it's an interesting observation that Craig makes.  I look out on my creek and see a few boaters -- usually individual sport fishermen -- wearing PFDs, but the watermen don't.  Ever.  Not even when they're breaking the ice to clear a channel.  There might be a PFD stuffed under the toolkit somewhere, but maybe not.  It's not okay for watermen to show that kind of concern -- and it's not an accepted practice to wear PFDs.  

My other guess is that it's a visual thing, in the end.  For example, I'm guessing wildly here, but look at the picture at http://lh5.ggpht.com/lmfYUZrvqWZbFrKrOnTetbgBvb8SpKlSESFLlPDf5FUYxcVmkavQ7QGmMva9dxjU6n1eSBLD287I2Ac4P3ZHk0Fgc6_CST7iKx2pt9Iw-T5FsVgsnasaHqbT
It's from the Web site of the operator of the kayak rental agency on the Potomac that the unfortunate Mr. Huggins used last weekend during his "accident".  Now, I see a bunch of kids and young adults happily awaiting a kayak outing, all tucked into their rec kayaks and SOTs, all wearing their PFDs.  But, wait -- the guy in the back, waving -- couldn't be the group leader, could he?  He has an unusual PFD on that looks just like a 35mm camera!  (How do they make these things?  Remarkable!) There's nothing on the site that tells us more, but I wonder how that gent made the other adults feel about being out on a trip sitting in the back seats of their kayaks with their belts on.

Joq
***************************************************************************
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/
***************************************************************************