Are Cert/Currency requirements too lenient?

[NudeDiver]

...So many variables to go in to it. Is it worth paying 500 dollars a year to recert?

No, I was arguing for small, non-tyrannical government minding its own business and allowing people to exercise their stupidity skills into extinction, the way nature intended.

 

[k ellis]

 

[Buoyant1]

You read through stuff like this and you wonder about all of those "should I keep a log book" threads! Then you wonder about the operators that DO check your books, and can't honestly complain about them wanting to do so...

But when you read through the accidents and incidents, and you see how stupid some people can be, and how some accidents can be prevented, you almost wish that the people renting tanks and running dive trips would be more prudent in checking these records.

Where's the line between being a bother and being safe?

 

[Puffer Fish]

You read through stuff like this and you wonder about all of those "should I keep a log book" threads! Then you wonder about the operators that DO check your books, and can't honestly complain about them wanting to do so...

But when you read through the accidents and incidents, and you see how stupid some people can be, and how some accidents can be prevented, you almost wish that the people renting tanks and running dive trips would be more prudent in checking these records.

Where's the line between being a bother and being safe?

That is a very, very grey line. There are lots of places that do a simple skill test before letting people dive... some resorts have a manditory checkout dive. Soom do an inquisition..."Who are you" What sort of diving have you done"... "How many dives have you done in the last 6 months".

I believe, that good, safe operations want to stay that way.. and stay in business. Getting tanks and rental equipment seems to be letting Darwin's rules apply.

In the world, that has become a very hit and miss situation... here, at least from what I have seen, the best to worse seem to be getting narrower... to the side of getting better.

 

[k ellis]

Again as I mentioned earlier if the shop ask for a C-Card and you present one then the liability rest on the shoulders of the one renting the gear. If you go to court most likely they would ask if the person presented a certification and if you answered yes then they would then go forth with asking the certification agency the questions of the divers capabilities.

In part I can only see where the diver in question with all the responsibility on his shoulders should be more intelligent then to risk a fellow divers life by not being honest.

I think the requirements as they stand now are perfect. Let the individual dive shop be the one to determine how far they will go to assure that the diver in question is a safe diver. To place an annual renewel or any type of renewal would simply be a tax on the sport.

 

[RonzoTheGreat]

this is a dangerous thread that i probably shouldnt get involved with ...

but i really like what rich wrote ... it is pretty easy to get a drivers license ... and killing others as well as yourself is certainly worse than just killing yourself ...

fact is, people take diving pretty seriously ... and the ones in the Caribbean sure do fall under a pretty big umbrella of low standards ... and a close cousin of mine recently go PADI certified in Columbia and during the beginning of his class, the instructor brought him directly to a pool and told him to get in ... (by himself)

but, that is one end of the spectrum. the end that i am on is not fair to talk about either ... the instructors that i look to for training and the dive professionals that i seek to mentor fall no where near this category ... so it is as relative as you taking your car to a private guy to get inspected because you cant pass the dmvs. or like dick cheney shooting someone and never even being considered for jail or even court. (imagine if i did the same thing)

their are high ends and low ends ... you get resort or other cert through a cookie cutting agency, you get what you deserve ... you go to a serious trainer you get serious training.

 

[TMHeimer]

I don't think it's too lenient. Like getting a drivers license on city streets and now being certified to drive the interstates around New York. We already have too many laws for everything. Scuba is one rare place that still puts the onus on the individual to know one's own safety limits and just use common sense. Maybe that's because you can only wind up in trouble yourself, or cause your buddy trouble (he did decide to go with you). An example of the other side is mandatory seat belt laws for 30 years. Now it's just accepted (though I always use mine- laws or not).

 

[boulderjohn]

This is true but will it actually save liability? Look at the woman who went to mcdonalds bought coffee and spilled it on herself (Knowing no one buys cold coffee from Mcdonalds) and got paid for being stupid.

Ah, the famous McDonalds coffee case rears its head again!

Perhaps we should talk about the jury that acquitted a man of rape charges because the woman was wearing a lace skirt, a verdict that outraged the nation at about the same time as the MacDonalds case. Or we could talk about the blind man who determined that elephants are shaped like ropes after he held the tail of one.

If we know only a piece of information about something, it is easy to draw an unwarranted conclusion about the whole.

For example, there is more to temperature than just "hot" and "cold." In the MacDonalds case, the McDonalds intentionally maintained its coffee at temperatures far above industry standards, despite previous warnings about the danger, and the woman would not have suffered the very severe injuries she suffered (requiring hospitalization) with normal hot coffee. The jury decision does not seem so outrageous when you see the entire case.

In the lace skirt case, the defense argued that he was just having normal sex with a prostitute. The raped woman argued that she was not a prostitute, she was just an innocent woman who liked to hang out in parking lots at 3:00 AM wearing suggestivve clothing. Jury members interviewed later said that she was so obviously lying about her role that they did not know what else they could believe from her.

Our world is not always as nonsensical as it appears to be.

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

I find this an interesting thread when viewed in conjunction with another thread discussing whether people feel qualified to dive independently after taking their OW training. ALl I can say is that obviously a whole lot of people view the OW qualification as not being worth a great deal, and nevertheless a different whole lot of people obviously think it's fine for their purposes.

In my own case (n=1), I think the OW certification was perfect for my purposes: it was a license to learn how to perform undemanding dives in open water under the extremely loose supervision of dive masters.

 

[Web Monkey]

Is there anyone else out there who believes that it is far too easy to get and maintain an OW certification?

I believe the standards for teaching and passing OW aren't necessarily too easy, just not objective enough. The same OW card can mean that you spent an entire semester in class and the pool and did your OW dives on an ice-crusted lake in a drysuit while it was snowing, or it could mean that you spent two mornings near the pool on a cruise ship and did your OW dives in an 80 degree lagoon in the tropics.

One or two weekends in a quarry and you are certified to dive in all sorts of conditions!d "I got me c-card in Jamaica in the winter, now I want to dive the 38 degree waters of the great lakes in the late spring."

There are pretty much zero problems with people diving beyond their training here (Great Lakes) because the people who certified in warm, sunny, calm water have little interest in going down to see a perfectly preserved civil war wreck that's pitch black and freezing cold with 15' viz at noon in the middle of the summer.

The uninviting conditions seem to provide built-in protection against unqualified divers. I also beleive the lack of divemasters and guided dives helps a lot. If you want to dive here, you need to buy or rent equipment, hire a boat (or find a shore diving site) plan your dive, then then hit the water with you and your buddy and find your way back to the boat when done.

Every now and then someone dies up here, but it's almost always an experienced diver being a dumbass or an uncertified diver being taken into the water by a non-instructor.

However, if you expand this a little, I believe the current "certified for life" thing needs to be changed a little. Someone could easily not have been in the water for 20 years, and then decide to go diving. I think C-Cards should need annual renewal with proof of some minimal number of dives for the year, or require successfully completing a SCUBA Skills Update class.

Terry