Diving as a self regulated industry

I'm currently working on an essay for for English class arguing that diving should remain a self-rergulated industry. Governments should keep their hands out of the sport as much as possible. Do any board members have any ideas of their own or links or resources?

Thanks in advance, DSAO,

Anthony

Over 50 years we have done really well

there are so many myths and unfounded fears about diving held by people who haven’t even tried diving that I'd be afraid of the rules set down by them. You might get rules like: "All divers must have some form of protection against all sharks at all times", or the dreaded scuba police might actually come into existence enforcing depth limits, max bottom times, etc.

I think we have been doing fine so far, the sport is getting safer by the day, and people who aren't divers have no business telling me how to dive!

regulated to a much greater extent in England, how about some input on safety changes since government took control?

For or against?

Jeff

If you think about it, there are already some government regulations with scuba diving.

The DOT is in charge of tanks, USCG is in charge of boats used for diving, state parks requiring dive flags,etc. There is no need for extra "regulation" in this industry.

Well, in general I think the diving community does a decent, but not spectacular job of regulating itself. There is one aspect that has always troubled me and that is of the instructor "passing" his/her own students.

I'm going to fall back on my experience with flying. For a person to obtain a private pilot's licence they need to go to a reputable school, learn from a competent instructor, and pass written and practical exams. Not so different from diving. The big difference is that the exams are given and scored by the FAA, not the instructor or school that teaches the pilot.

I don't think this is a horrible model. If an instructor *knows* that the students abilities will be judged by someone else, I think they'd be less likely to overlook the students' deficiencies before signing off on the final tests.

I don't think that the full FAA model is necessary, but to hand off the students to another instructor for the final evaluation means that the skills portion will be evaluated on a stricter pass/fail than the current plan in which a student that may have problems on a skill won't be cut slack from an understanding instructor and that the instructor will have to be absolutely sure the student can pass before turning them over thus ensuring a higher degree of skill from the very beginning. Each agency could supply instructors instead of a national, government controlled overseeing body.

This may or may not be on topic. If not, I apologize.

Can open, worms everywhere.........

Rachel

The scuba industry should remain self policing but they do need to up the ante so to speak in terms of certification. It is indeed nuts for a shop which is dependent on selling classes and selling gear to certified divers to be the sole determining authority as to what exactly constitutes "passing skills and knowledge". This is the conflict of interest within the industry which needs to be addressed. I sincerely hope that the various certification bodies would get together and appoint an internal committee of somesort which would remove the actual "testing" of students to a more non-biased group.

It is great that Scuba gear itself is so well constructed that there are not too many diver accidents caused solely by equipment failure. I worry that as "technical" diving increases in popularity, that the death rates will increase if the testing system for tech diving are "dumbed down" and skills are "passed" based on LDS/industry desires to have more consumers and the "everyone can dive" attitude is perpetuated. I don't think we have got there yet but it is something to keep in mind as an ongoing potential issue in the future.

Please no more regulations. Here in MA we have a flag law, it SUCKS!!! I have to carry flag (which loves to tangle on everything) in a pond where no boats are allowed. What great law, they really had divers' saftey in mind.


In terms of certs, there really no way to stop people from diving w/out a c-card, unless you want to make a law banning the possesion of dive gear or somthing. It's not hard for people just to borrow some else's gear if they are stupid enough to want to dive without formal training (i.e. some 2 day PADI course to get tourists ready to get wet).

This reminds me of the old joke...the 1st people to complain about capitalism are the capitalists.

It's funny how people say that agencies and the industry as a whole suck because it's getting easier to cert people, or none of the agencys do the same thing (this one's better than that one).blah....

Yet, when someone says "Hey, what about an outside independant council?" Everyone is like "Whoa, hell no, that's a horrible idea!!!"

Not that I think it's good, if anyone is going to tell me how/where/when to dive, they need to have more experience than me and be able to gain my respect.

Oh, well first of all I hope it's ok if I quote a bit from the threads for argument's sake in the paper... It is a public forum, and I have no interest in publishing, just getting opinions/thoughts from divers elsewhere... Feel free to post even more of your ideas on the topic!!!

Second of all, how far are we from having the oh-so-fear scuba police? I mean, could it happen?

You're all awesome, thanks so much!

Anthony