Do we need instructors?

[kosap1]

No more unsafe than filling a fuel tank on a vehicle. When is the last time the clerk wanted to see your driver's license?

But, yes. That is a different industry with a different norm. And the advent of paintball created a problem for this norm as paying customers had to be turned away for lack of a C-card. Suddenly, a waiver was good enough. After all safety is great until it starts costing rather than making money.

BTW, did you learn to drive from a professional instructor or from a mentor?

So you think that a self regulated industry is not a good thing?

You are right, some dive shops will fill scuba cylinders without a c-card if they are being used for paintball. But they should (I know they wont always ask but they should) for that c-card. It at least makes me think about who's cylinder I am filling. If I feel as though they are unsafe i wont fill it. I am not about to endanger someone else's life because I didn't care if someone was certified.

Why do we visually inspect cylinders and put a sticker on the side of it? I mean if we don't care if the person getting it filled knows how to properly use it then why do we care about the safety of the actual cylinder?

I was trained by a team of professional instructors.

 

[kosap1]

A case in point. I was on the counter one day at a dive shop. Guy comes in and asks if I can fill his tank. I asked him what his plan was and he told me that he was going to go diving on his own in the bay where the shop was located. I asked him if he had any training as a Solo Diver. He gawped at me, stuttered and said "no". So he didn't get his fill, at least from me.

Exactly, its a ethical decision that the person doing the filling will make. I'm not about to endanger someone else's life by aiding in their stupidity. Go get the training or go to a shop where they don't care about safety.

 

[redacted]

So you think that a self regulated industry is not a good thing?

You are right, some dive shops will fill scuba cylinders without a c-card if they are being used for paintball. But they should (I know they wont always ask but they should) for that c-card. It at least makes me think about who's cylinder I am filling. If I feel as though they are unsafe i wont fill it. I am not about to endanger someone else's life because I didn't care if someone was certified.

Why do we visually inspect cylinders and put a sticker on the side of it? I mean if we don't care if the person getting it filled knows how to properly use it then why do we care about the safety of the actual cylinder?

I was trained by a team of professional instructors.

The safety of the cylinder is primarily an issue for the guy doing the filling.

I don't object to a self regulated industry but I am a bit concerned whether that regulation by the training agencies is really motivated by profit or safety. I do object to those agencies requiring training and testing when testing alone should meet the safety objective. I believe the option of hiring professional instructors should be there assuming the voluntary demand supports it. I believe that we could end up improving safety if the industry were regulated by some entity that did not make it's profit from training.

 

[Paladin]

To KOSAP1:
I dive because I love to dive. As far as taking advanced classes, my mentor was an ex-Navy diver who spent an entire year teaching me everything he had learned in the Navy. At the time I learned to dive, there was no such thing as an "advanced" class. Everything was taught at once over an extended period of time.

To DCBC:
The issue here is not that divers have to pay for air. I, for one, am happy to pay for air that I can trust to be clean and free from contaminants (though on at least one occasion I did get bad air from a shop). The shop where I get my air actually charges $3 more for a fill than the other two shops within driving distance from me. He does this so that he can at least break even on the cost of supplying air. He charges $8 per fill, and I would be willing to pay $10 per fill if that's what it takes to give me clean air.

 

[I Dive]

Yea, the guy should have bought one of those tire servicing adaptors that most dive shops sell and told you he was a mechanic. I have yet to see any of these guys have to produce a C-Card or a mechanics card!

Cut the self serving crap guys, you're selling air. Just about a stupid as requiring a prescription for medical oxygen and nothing for industrial oxygen.

Putting air in my tank makes you no more liable than putting gas in my car.

Self serving crap? I don't own or work for a dive shop. Uless I'm helping out a class (which I volunteer for, never getting paid) I don't get free air, I buy mine every time I dive. How exactly is my opinion self serving? And why is an opinion contrary to yours "crap"?

 

[leapfrog]

Just about a stupid as requiring a prescription for medical oxygen and nothing for industrial oxygen....Putting air in my tank makes you no more liable than putting gas in my car.

You are entitled to your opinion, however baseless or lacking in knowledge that may be. However, the phrase "Cut the self serving crap guys, you're selling air." is not only untrue, it's also rude.

 

[Paladin]

You are entitled to your opinion, however baseless or lacking in knowledge that may be. However, the phrase "Cut the self serving crap guys, you're selling air." is not only untrue, it's also rude.

Leapfrog, on this I will agree with you. A dive shop is not selling air, per se, it is selling a service. SCUBA compressors are not only expensive to buy, they are expensive to maintain. By operating a compressor and supplying divers with clean, dry air, they are saving their customers the expense that would otherwise have to come out of their own pockets.

I have, on occasion, considered purchasing a small, portable compressor. My mentor, Harold, had his own compressor and taught me how to set it up, operate and maintain it. I know what it takes to run one of those things and this is the reason I don't own one. Yet.

I agree with AWAP that an option should be set up that would allow for the practical testing of divers trained under the mentor system. I believe both types of training can co-exist to the advantage of all.

 

[DCBC]

I agree with AWAP that an option should be set up that would allow for the practical testing of divers trained under the mentor system. I believe both types of training can co-exist to the advantage of all.

The problem is liability (unfortunately). The OP posted a question that assumed that liability wasn't an issue. In the real world, it is.

 

[Paladin]

Let me toss something out here.

The government takes over the responsibility for the certification (or "licensing", if you will) of SCUBA divers. For training, the prospective student diver has the option of choosing an experienced mentor or professional instructor. A written test is issued for a "learner's permit" that would serve for either path. As a condition for receiving the permit, the student must sign a notarized liability waiver that protects his teacher, whomever that might be. After training, the student reports to a government licensed facility (could be, and probably would be, a dive shop or other professional training facility) for practical testing. As the entire process would be under government regulations, the liability level would be no more than it is for driver training. You can't sue the state for issuing a driver's license to a driver that causes an accident and you couldn't sue the state for issuing a c-card to a diver who has one.

Just a thought.

 

[theduckguru]

By self serving crap, I mean this "we can't do it for liability" excuse that is standard in scuba.

If we had the same "we are going to make you safer and us less liable approach" adopted by the rest of society, you couldn't eat in a resturant because you might choke, we can't sell you gas because you might wreck, we can sell you rope because you might hang yourself ect. Fortuneatly no one blames the rope manufactures or the hardware store selling the rope.

The argument of a LDS selling air or a service is like arguing a resturant isn't selling food but is providing food preparation services.

The industry is over self regulating on the issue of filling tanks and much of that self regulation is instructional profit driven.