Rickk
Contributor
The graph showing that about 10% of fatalities occur on training dives is a little misleading.
I have about 200 dives. PADI OW was 5, AOW+ was 9, Ice was 3, Deep was 4 Rescue was also 4 = 25 dives or more than 10% of my total. I really don't think that that is out of line for most recreational divers. The average number of dives per year is somewhere around 5 for a diver and the average retention rate is about 8 years so it follows that the average diver will do about 40 or 50 dives in their diving career. I know that low a number here will seem unbelievable but that is the published numbers.
So someone only doing OW and AOW will have 9 training dives, more than 10% of the total career dives.
What does surprise me is that a fatality could occur with about the same regularity in a training situation, where an instructor is or at least should be monitoring a students actions and be ready to abort if the student is doing something wrong.
Lots of this thread is bashing one agency or the other, While my certification is all PADI, I have read as much as I can on the other agencies diving courses and don't really think much of most of them.
The focus of the main agencies is to get as many people in the water as possible and blowing bubbles. They offer short courses because that is what the market wants and demands. How many casual divers, those only ever going to dive less than 100 dives in their diving career, want to sigh up for an expensive and in depth course with 20 or 30 dives that takes a few months to complete? Remember many divers just view diving as a recreational activity that they may or may not enjoy on any particular vacation or if there are dive sites near home as a weekend activity done once a year?
One article I read split the diving community into 2 groups. Those that were divers and identified themselves es as such, that would be just about everyone here. The picked vacation locations based on diving, they spent weekends regularly going to local dive places, they spent a lot on kit and while not diving participated in diving related activities DIY kit building, on forums like this or hanging out at their LDS talking about the finer details of the pros and cons of a particular regulator or BCD.
The rest are people who do diving, the dive sites available are not a major determining factor where they go for a winter vacation, they have no interest in taking much training beyond the minimum to dive. ( I have met people who just do the discover diving pool session every vacation then dive open ocean, It actually costs less than getting certified then taking a refresher session every vacation because they only dive once a year.)
The training is crap because that is what the majority of the market wants. They want to Pay And Dive Immediately, they are not willing to invest the time in being a top diver. If their skill are something that the dedicated divers and pro's find inadequate, they really don't care. They had their dive day on their vacation and now want to sit on the beach or go on the zip line or mountain bike or go hiking for a different activity.
Even if the courses are crap, I don;t see any standards monitoring by the agencies. If they really cared about producing top quality divers, they would do reviews of all dive shops and dive operators to ensure that the standards, minimal as they are, in their courses were in fact being followed in the field. They don't do that because if they did, then all the PADI shops would be NAUI shops in about a week. (Or the reverse depending on who was enforcing the standards.)
We do have some agencies like RAID or GUE that have a higher level of certification and actually do want to produce skilled divers are not common. In fact until I started posting her and reading the forums, I had not heard of either of these agencies. That alone should tell you something about what the market wants and what it gets.
What can we do?
The pro's can make sure that they exceed the minimum standards of the agencies, they can make sure that every OW diver they sign off on understands the importance of buoyancy control, proper propulsion, the need to respect the environment, the real dangers an mitigation stratifies in the water. You are not going to produce a diver with perfect buoyancy control in only 5 dives, but you an produce a diver who understands the need for good control, how to achieve it and can then practice it as they develop and as they take more training.
The non pro's can help the new divers, provide some encouragement and helpful advice on their skills, mostly by demonstrating good skills ourselves and showing a true safety attitude in the water. Don't skip over your gear checks, do them and be seen to do them. On safety spots practice some skills, plan share air drills, do equipment remove and replace. It will make you a better diver and help the new divers who may only have done these skills once or twice in their OW class practice them again.
I have about 200 dives. PADI OW was 5, AOW+ was 9, Ice was 3, Deep was 4 Rescue was also 4 = 25 dives or more than 10% of my total. I really don't think that that is out of line for most recreational divers. The average number of dives per year is somewhere around 5 for a diver and the average retention rate is about 8 years so it follows that the average diver will do about 40 or 50 dives in their diving career. I know that low a number here will seem unbelievable but that is the published numbers.
So someone only doing OW and AOW will have 9 training dives, more than 10% of the total career dives.
What does surprise me is that a fatality could occur with about the same regularity in a training situation, where an instructor is or at least should be monitoring a students actions and be ready to abort if the student is doing something wrong.
Lots of this thread is bashing one agency or the other, While my certification is all PADI, I have read as much as I can on the other agencies diving courses and don't really think much of most of them.
The focus of the main agencies is to get as many people in the water as possible and blowing bubbles. They offer short courses because that is what the market wants and demands. How many casual divers, those only ever going to dive less than 100 dives in their diving career, want to sigh up for an expensive and in depth course with 20 or 30 dives that takes a few months to complete? Remember many divers just view diving as a recreational activity that they may or may not enjoy on any particular vacation or if there are dive sites near home as a weekend activity done once a year?
One article I read split the diving community into 2 groups. Those that were divers and identified themselves es as such, that would be just about everyone here. The picked vacation locations based on diving, they spent weekends regularly going to local dive places, they spent a lot on kit and while not diving participated in diving related activities DIY kit building, on forums like this or hanging out at their LDS talking about the finer details of the pros and cons of a particular regulator or BCD.
The rest are people who do diving, the dive sites available are not a major determining factor where they go for a winter vacation, they have no interest in taking much training beyond the minimum to dive. ( I have met people who just do the discover diving pool session every vacation then dive open ocean, It actually costs less than getting certified then taking a refresher session every vacation because they only dive once a year.)
The training is crap because that is what the majority of the market wants. They want to Pay And Dive Immediately, they are not willing to invest the time in being a top diver. If their skill are something that the dedicated divers and pro's find inadequate, they really don't care. They had their dive day on their vacation and now want to sit on the beach or go on the zip line or mountain bike or go hiking for a different activity.
Even if the courses are crap, I don;t see any standards monitoring by the agencies. If they really cared about producing top quality divers, they would do reviews of all dive shops and dive operators to ensure that the standards, minimal as they are, in their courses were in fact being followed in the field. They don't do that because if they did, then all the PADI shops would be NAUI shops in about a week. (Or the reverse depending on who was enforcing the standards.)
We do have some agencies like RAID or GUE that have a higher level of certification and actually do want to produce skilled divers are not common. In fact until I started posting her and reading the forums, I had not heard of either of these agencies. That alone should tell you something about what the market wants and what it gets.
What can we do?
The pro's can make sure that they exceed the minimum standards of the agencies, they can make sure that every OW diver they sign off on understands the importance of buoyancy control, proper propulsion, the need to respect the environment, the real dangers an mitigation stratifies in the water. You are not going to produce a diver with perfect buoyancy control in only 5 dives, but you an produce a diver who understands the need for good control, how to achieve it and can then practice it as they develop and as they take more training.
The non pro's can help the new divers, provide some encouragement and helpful advice on their skills, mostly by demonstrating good skills ourselves and showing a true safety attitude in the water. Don't skip over your gear checks, do them and be seen to do them. On safety spots practice some skills, plan share air drills, do equipment remove and replace. It will make you a better diver and help the new divers who may only have done these skills once or twice in their OW class practice them again.