Missdirected
Contributor
Everytime I hear some diver say we need more boater education, it makes me want to puke. It is the typical reaction of a person who does not really want to do much--and if they do this tiny thing, then they can feel good about themselves.
Dan, respectfully, I have to say I find many of your posts and thoughts on the subject to be off-base. For most of my life I have done a number of charitable/helpful things when I am able. Please allow for me to give an example, I once read about a young boy (8) with Leukemia. It was the daily local paper here that featured his story. They explained that his chances of finding a marrow donor match were incredibly slim due to his being hispanic and the number of hispanics on the marrow list were were extremely low. His community, if you will, needed educated on the subject. So whoop ti do they told the story of the boy. I felt for the boy, mine happened to be the same age at the time, but it was time to move on, right?
Anywho, I read through the story and yea I felt bad but what the heck is one person going to to do? Time for me to move on. No one would ever know any different, right? Wrong. I would know. I would know that at that particular time in my life I had the resource - TIME - to do something about it and make a difference. So I did along with 300 other people.
I set about educating his community on the need for hispanic donors. I called the blood bank and got in touch with the head of the marrow program and from there I got nearly three hundred people to come out and see if they could match this boy or another person on the list. I distinctly remember, the nurse arriving and seeing all the people lined up around the corner. The look of shock on her face was one I will never forget. She looked at me and said, "I didn't bring nearly enough nurses for all of these people". Was I proud - you bet your ass I was. Did I "feel good about myself" for doing what I did - heck yea! They did not find a donor out of the lot that I recruited but they did find a donor for him.
Each and every person that came out that day should feel good about themselves. They took a moment to step up to the plate and educate themselves and to give freely of themselves. Even those that could not give, for one reason or another, were now educated and they could now educate someone else. Something that may have seemed small snowballed into something huge.
Bottom line - effort is something that compounds. One person helping or giving.... Well you get the gist - it can grow exponentially. Berating your fellow divers by essentially stating their motives don't meet your standards or aren't good enough.... just boggles me.
Everyone has their own strengths. I can try to get divers aware of this, and help to create a critical mass of divers--a group large enough to accomplish something....I could also contribute money to a fund for getting the legislative work accomplished....there would also need to be attorneys and people with legislative experieince... and there would be many other strengths members here could bring to bear.
I can't say that after insulting those that are trying to do something, no matter how small in your eyes, by stating they want to make you puke, that they will want to follow you.
So, here we have a supposedly "active" group of Internet divers, who can sit back and do nothing over an incident like this Rob Murphy Tragedy...and where whining about better education about dive flags is the "easy out" a few "guilty" members of this huge group want to show thier solidarity with.
The only shot we have at fixing this ENORMOUS PROBLEM for all divers, is to "become a real group, a real force", a real lobbying group, and tirelessly fight for legislative changes and huge punitive measures..and the creation of a huge revenue stream for the local law enforcement agency responsible for each reef used by divers.
Dan V
Again, you are attacking those that would otherwise be an asset to accomplishing bigger goals. DivingPrincessE, started a petition group on FaceBook. So far with her one group, began on behalf of ChadCarney and his awareness plan, she has united 300+ divers. That my friend, is a real group consisting of real people and real divers. You take that group and give them something bigger and even more worthy to be a part of, you don't think that they would? Personally I think they would. However, they are going to care naught if they are being attacked, berated, or what have you.
I would say that 99.9 percent of the divers on this board took a drivers license exam..and that each knows it is illegal to speed. Strangely, a huge chunk of this 99%, speeds in their car, on a regular basis.
It is not about boaters "knowing" more about dive flags. It is about boaters "fearing" dive flags, or more specifically, fearing the ramifications of being caught speeding close by a dive flag.
Regards,
Dan V
Speeding is one thing, looking for pedestrians to run over is another. Personally, I think too many boaters buy boats but have no clue as to the "rules of the road", if you will.
My opinion on this issue is education followed by stiffer penalties but it starts with education. You take that drivers test and you are required to know the road signs and what each of them means. Following that, I believe when you get a boat one should be required to pay for and a take a USCG class. I took one, enjoyed it and found it to be very beneficial.
By requiring one to take a class and pass a test you have created monies for law enforcement to better enforce the laws and you have educated those that otherwise would not know any better.
Now do I have the time to take on this project and bring it to the next level? No, I do not at this time, as much as I'd like to. However, I am sure there are others who would be keen to head up something of this nature.