Government Regulation

[drrich2]

It is the nature of the regulatory beast that regulations are crafted, despite that some people will die, and people who are characterologically incapable of accepting that 'crap happens' will then modify & add more regulations (a 'plan of correction' it's known in one field I'm familiar with), and over time, these things build up.

In the thread I believe inspired this one, an issue came up which I will restate in a modified form, applied to the government instead of to bystanders, and yes, this also covers the issues of the seat belt and helmet laws:

1.) Does government have a duty of care to overrule the free will of adults who, not compromised by insanity, dementia, developmental disability (e.g.: mental retardation or autism) or the like, and impose the government's decisions on them to prevent them from engaging in self(only)-endangering behaviors (e.g.: over-eating, lack of exercise, diving beyond certification training, driving without seat belts, motor cycling without helmets, etc...)?

The counter question:

1.) How much do you value true liberty?

The price of liberty is that some people will misuse it via foolish choices that periodically result in death or serious injury. To the extent that none save themselves are apt to suffer this, and they are competent adults, I guess you could over-generalize that the price of freedom is letting some idiots kill themselves.

Where you draw the line here is highly individual.

A philisophically different affair is the idea of restricting someone else's freedom because his/her abuses might lead to regulations constraining yours. The example is a cave diver bodily grabbing and hauling an OW diver out of a cave, justified on the grounds that the OW diver's reckless self-destruction could lead to the site being closed off to all divers.

So what if things changed so that we didn't have to worry about that? Let's say the cave diver sees an adult OW diver, not out-fitted for cave diving & highly unlikely to cave cert.'d, entering a cave, and despite making motions, signs, writing on a slate, whatever, it's obvious the OW diver will ignore the warnings & proceed. Let's say the cave diver somehow knows site access restriction or legal regulations will not follow. He shrugs, swims off, the OW diver predictably dies, and the cave diver posts on this forum, describing the incident, says "Well, I warned him," shrugs and heads off to bed with a clean conscious.

Is that cool? Why or why not?

Richard.

 

[dmoore19]

I leave the answer up to you. But ask 2 others. Having never been in a cave and never wanting to I may not make much sense.

1. Exactly what is your obligation? You have warned the person, you have tried to communicate that he is in danger. Are you supposed to grab his tank valve and drag him out?

2. If this scenario were to happen is a law that forbids it going to make any difference to the untrained diver?

My thoughts are,

1. If you have warned the person, you are released from any further obligation.
2. No, the diver is going to do it regardless of a law. The rules are in place already, what has changed?

It is the nature of the regulatory beast that regulations are crafted, despite that some people will die, and people who are characterologically incapable of accepting that 'crap happens' will then modify & add more regulations (a 'plan of correction' it's known in one field I'm familiar with), and over time, these things build up.

In the thread I believe inspired this one, an issue came up which I will restate in a modified form, applied to the government instead of to bystanders, and yes, this also covers the issues of the seat belt and helmet laws:

1.) Does government have a duty of care to overrule the free will of adults who, not compromised by insanity, dementia, developmental disability (e.g.: mental retardation or autism) or the like, and impose the government's decisions on them to prevent them from engaging in self(only)-endangering behaviors (e.g.: over-eating, lack of exercise, diving beyond certification training, driving without seat belts, motor cycling without helmets, etc...)?

The counter question:

1.) How much do you value true liberty?

The price of liberty is that some people will misuse it via foolish choices that periodically result in death or serious injury. To the extent that none save themselves are apt to suffer this, and they are competent adults, I guess you could over-generalize that the price of freedom is letting some idiots kill themselves.

Where you draw the line here is highly individual.

A philisophically different affair is the idea of restricting someone else's freedom because his/her abuses might lead to regulations constraining yours. The example is a cave diver bodily grabbing and hauling an OW diver out of a cave, justified on the grounds that the OW diver's reckless self-destruction could lead to the site being closed off to all divers.

So what if things changed so that we didn't have to worry about that? Let's say the cave diver sees an adult OW diver, not out-fitted for cave diving & highly unlikely to cave cert.'d, entering a cave, and despite making motions, signs, writing on a slate, whatever, it's obvious the OW diver will ignore the warnings & proceed. Let's say the cave diver somehow knows site access restriction or legal regulations will not follow. He shrugs, swims off, the OW diver predictably dies, and the cave diver posts on this forum, describing the incident, says "Well, I warned him," shrugs and heads off to bed with a clean conscious.

Is that cool? Why or why not?

Richard.

 

[pocky21]

How about reverse psychology for the "macho man" pretenders?

We can hang a few care bears, paint a few rainbows, maybe have a big unicorn or two in the cavern zone. If that isn't enough, we can replace the reaper signs with one that says "tunnel of love" - add a big cardboard cutout of a muscular, leather clad diver saying "how deep can YOU handle?"

I guarantee if they somehow get past that and a cave diver charges them, they WON'T be coming back!

 

[redacted]

I was the poster who brought up the idea in the other thread. It's an ongoing discussion I have with my husband, who is training for his pilot's license. If enough accidents happen, you never know if some politician is going to latch onto it, as someone mentioned above. I can see it being a way to show how much he/she cares about people, bla, bla, bla.

My guess is that it would lead to :

- Higher cost of training, due to shops having to be government regulated.
- Longer, more complicated training, since divers would have to memorize a list of regulations
- More regulations on who can buy what gear and when, also leading to higher costs
- Divers being required to renew certifications and/or have to prove they have dived recently
- Someone, likely the DNR, stopping divers going in or out of the water and demanding to see their card, much the same way you could be asked to see your fishing license
- Probably not a significantly reduced number of dive accidents, as most are either unavoidable or caused by people who are already ignoring their training, so are unlikely to pay much attention to government regulations.

I suspect, for the individual diver, there would be a licensing requirement similar to driving. No training required. but there may still be demand for diving schools. Licenses would require testing, written and in water. Probably different licenses for different types of diving. I'm sure there would be an expiration and a renewal fee. I don't see it having any effect on gear costs.

I see both good and bad in the concept. But I don't see it happening. Driver's licenses don't protect the driver. They protect other folks on the public roads. Don't need no stinkin' driver's license down on the farm.

 

[StefinSB]

Can you define what you mean by true liberty?

It is the nature of the regulatory beast that regulations are crafted, despite that some people will die, and people who are characterologically incapable of accepting that 'crap happens' will then modify & add more regulations (a 'plan of correction' it's known in one field I'm familiar with), and over time, these things build up.

In the thread I believe inspired this one, an issue came up which I will restate in a modified form, applied to the government instead of to bystanders, and yes, this also covers the issues of the seat belt and helmet laws:

1.) Does government have a duty of care to overrule the free will of adults who, not compromised by insanity, dementia, developmental disability (e.g.: mental retardation or autism) or the like, and impose the government's decisions on them to prevent them from engaging in self(only)-endangering behaviors (e.g.: over-eating, lack of exercise, diving beyond certification training, driving without seat belts, motor cycling without helmets, etc...)?

The counter question:

1.) How much do you value true liberty?

The price of liberty is that some people will misuse it via foolish choices that periodically result in death or serious injury. To the extent that none save themselves are apt to suffer this, and they are competent adults, I guess you could over-generalize that the price of freedom is letting some idiots kill themselves.

Where you draw the line here is highly individual.

A philisophically different affair is the idea of restricting someone else's freedom because his/her abuses might lead to regulations constraining yours. The example is a cave diver bodily grabbing and hauling an OW diver out of a cave, justified on the grounds that the OW diver's reckless self-destruction could lead to the site being closed off to all divers.

So what if things changed so that we didn't have to worry about that? Let's say the cave diver sees an adult OW diver, not out-fitted for cave diving & highly unlikely to cave cert.'d, entering a cave, and despite making motions, signs, writing on a slate, whatever, it's obvious the OW diver will ignore the warnings & proceed. Let's say the cave diver somehow knows site access restriction or legal regulations will not follow. He shrugs, swims off, the OW diver predictably dies, and the cave diver posts on this forum, describing the incident, says "Well, I warned him," shrugs and heads off to bed with a clean conscious.

Is that cool? Why or why not?

Richard.

 

[redacted]

1. Exactly what is your obligation? You have warned the person, you have tried to communicate that he is in danger. Are you supposed to grab his tank valve and drag him out?

Perhaps you should just try to obtain pertinent information and see if you can get a 6 hour life insurance policy on them.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

It will never happen.
There's not enough money in it for them.
They may as well start regulating surfing or scateboarding, or rock climbing.
What would they gain from regulating any of it?

 

[CT-Rich]

haven't read every post on this thread, but here is my two cents: diving is already regulated.
The DOT regulates the safety of the tanks, requiring periodic testing and inspection. This done based on safe transport of compressed air.
The Coast guard regulates the charter boats to make sure they are safe, and meet certain safety requirements.
The states have regulations governing the harvesting of marine life and also retrieval of artifacts. They do vary from state to state.
We also have the certification agencies like NAUI and PADI the others that supervise the training of divers and sets standards.

The last big regulators are the insurance industry. Dive charters and shops and instructors live and die by the premiums they pay, you don't F*** with those mo-fo's, because nothing gets between them and their money. I can't see in our current divided state of governance, there would be any national stomach for adding more layers of bureaucracy to a this sport that has been indirectly regulated already and has a low fatality rate would be of any interest to the federal government. Anything that would make the sport more expensive would stir up a fast and brutal push back from the manufacturers' who would be effected.
Finally if the US can't decide to put rational gun regulations into effect after the slaughter of 26 teachers and first graders by a single man with a 100s of rounds of ammo, they aren't going to do anything about the occasional idiot diver killing himself through his own stupidity.

It is just talk.

 

[NAM001]

Mizzi

It looks like your thoughts is stuck between utopia and reality. No legislation has ever stopped kids with fake id's from getting beer or smokes. Added to that list are drivers, kids with red ridder b b guns, taxes, drugs, welfare , voting ect. The most regulators have been able to do is make the process more complicated and increase costs with out a proportional benifit. One look at threads like tank overfilling, filling tanks older than 20 yr's or scuba equipment transportation in personal vs. commercial aspects should clearly demonstrate the confusion. When you get right down to it. you dive, you screw up, and you and only you pay. Thinking that government regulaton will insure that there will no longer be anyone left behind to suffer the misfortune of a fatality is a misplaced concern. The last one I want to be deciding what is acceptable or not in event of a what if would be our government. Regulaton for the good ol USA is a sport. Picture going to a favorite site and having to show your dive c-card, your med card and proof of life insurance card, (so those left behind will not be the burdon of the govt). Ad then of course those cheks cant be done by just anyone, they must be government ceitfied card asker for'ers.

Dive site entry fee 20.00
taxes 5% 1.00
Federal dive surcharge 10.00
Equipment inspecton fee 5.00 per item 75.00 (one fin was missing)
Reco chamber support fee 10.00
Electronic certification validation fees 10.00
Viton oring inspection (NITROX DVIERS ONLY) 15.00
Tank fils air 25.00
tank fills Nitrox 35.00
National emergency services fund 15.00 (of course like SS Medicare ect the fund was robbed to spend on other non related stuff)

I think it would be better to sit at home and watch sea hunt reruns.

Of course the economy as it is has shut down too many shops. IF it just had more regulation.......

My original thought was more along the lines of "I wonder how many divers have to kill themselves doing something stupid before someone decides it's too dangerous to leave self-regulated?" Or, to put it more bluntly, who's going to ruin things for everyone else?

 

[Sevenrider860]

The future of recreational diving if regulated by the Federal Government...

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2013-title29-vol5/pdf/CFR-2013-title29-vol5-part1910-subpartT.pdf