"Term limits" on certifications

[Far_X]

It is hardly going to change overnight. In England, where I am from, you pass your driving test and you have your licence till you are 70. You may be driving everyday, you may not be. The only reason why I got my car licence was that it was one test as opposed to two for the motorbike and I had procrastinated about getting my full licence. Having a car licence allowed me to continue riding my bike as a "learner". Nice loophole. When I bought a car years later, I wasn't req'd to do a refresher course or anything. Got licence, insurance, sure, drive it away!!! I think all c cards should have an expiry date with the only way to avoid a refresher course is to have a minimum number of dives in the previous ten months before expiration. That'll sort out those once a year "divers" I have done over fifty dives in the last year and I still forgot things after taking a break over winter!!!

 

[PugetDiver]

Bureaucracy! I'm totally against making recertification mandatory! Wise, yes, mandatory no! Why should I have to pay for someone else's ignorance? As with most diving accidents the diver was unaware and irresponsible. Those same divers would find ways to get around the policy. They would take the cheapest re cert course...and probably sleep through it! I'm a doctor and I like what Valwood said! CE courses! Sure their required, but if your a good doc they shouldn't need to be! Once again it all comes back to DIVER RESPONSIBILITY! We all know what OSHA, ADA and Insurance companies have done to health care. Its starts by trying to enforcing common sense and then degrades into another useless hoop that just makes everyone mad they have to jump through it!

Hmmmm, do I deserve change for my two cents

Whoooa, take a deep breath. ok, now tell us how you really feel.

BTW, As a Doctor would you like to see more people have the right to NOT where their seat belt? Driver responsibility right?

 

[MikeFerrara]

Fortunately a dive certification isn't a license. With the acception of some parks, private owned boats where the owner can require what they want and very few countries that regulate diving, any one can dive anyplace they want to and don't need to have any certification.

Once I pay for a class, finish it and get my certificate of completion my business with the agency is finished. If I want them for anything else I'll call. If I want their advice I'll call.

I divers are being certified and are still unable to decide whether or not a dive is appropriate for them then the agencies aren't doing their job from day one and the last thing any one needs is more envolvement from them.

The way diving is often taught you could take the class 10 time in the same month and still not be any good.

After what I've seen over the last 16 years in manufacturing though I'd say that in order to keep ones MBA they should absolutely be required to recertify periodically!

 

[Chad_Ordelheide]

Second thought!!!

I'm guessing that the deaths referred to above wern't all from inexperience divers!!

 

[PugetDiver]

90 deaths per year globally? Interesting. I had heard we had as many as 12 a year here in the waters off Catalina.

I think it is important to recognize that lowering the number of deaths is not the only measure of the effectiveness of a recertification program like I am suggesting. These are just the "worst case" scenario. Whenever a rescue is required to extricate an unskilled or unfit diver from a situation, it places at least two people in jeopardy. Of course these statistics are generally not recorded, so we'd have litlle or no basis for measuring the impact on them.

Dr. Bill

After further research I found that the 90 death figure is for the USA. Approximately 5 deaths for every 100,000 dives.

 

[Charlie99]

I read somewhere that on average 90 divers die each year world wide. I wonder how many of those divers had not dove in the last 5 years prior to the incident. Any studies on that? I also wonder how many divers died from natural causes while diving (Heart Attack, Asthma etc....).

DAN does an annual injury and fatality report. The typical yearly fatality count for recreational divers of Canadian and US residence is 90.

Dan report is available to members free of charge.

BSAC also does an annual incident report..
Both the DAN and BSAC reports show a general downward trend in fatalities over the last decade.., except for last year in the UK where deaths spiked up to 25 rather than the typical 15-20.

As for your other questions about experience level / recent diving experience:

As in previous DAN reports, 40 percent of injured men and 50 percent of injured women had made fewer than 20 dives in the previous 12 months. About 25%/30% had less than 10 dives in previous 12 months.

Equivalent info for fatalities was a much smaller sample, but had the same sort of higher risk with <10 dives in the previous 12 months.

As for the cause of death, obviously it can be hard to determine and about 1/2 the deaths were "drowning". Air embolism and cardiovascular problems were tied as the next most common reasons, at 16 each out of 89 deaths in 2003.

Charlie

 

[sharpenu]

We have all seen how renewing your DL has helped with the driving death rates.

So there are 5 deaths for 100,000 dives. How many deaths occur due to a traffic accident on the way to or from those 100,000 dives?

That is all we need is another way for the agencies to take our money.

 

[Kim]

This is always a sticky one. There are obviously problems that occur when people get out of practice and forget stuff doing something inherently dangerous like diving. Unfortunately, as DrBill said - it can also effect others, i.e. the rescuers. On the other hand there are so many potential problems with renewable certs that it's hard to see how it could be done. I mean - who checks the logbooks? how do you know if what is written down is true anyway? If someone wants to circumvent that type of control it's easy enough to do.
Basically scuba diving DOES rely on the honor system and on people taking responsibility for their own actions. Only a complete idiot would think their skills were still up to par after a break of years, so only a complete idiot would ignore the recommendations to at least do a brush up course, or check out dives with an instructor. The fact the some people do though is something that you will probably never be able to change no matter what system you try to operate. There are always SOME complete idiots around!
The driving comparison with the UK was also interesting (I'm from the UK), because it's true that the licence is good for a long, long time. I got mine in the early '70s and it has an expiry date of 2013. Now I live in Japan and they have a very different system. Everytime you renew your licence you have to sit through a refresher classroom lecture on traffic rules etc. The length of this refresher depends on whether you did anything wrong - parking, speeding etc - in the last period, and varies from about 45 mins to several hours! Does this produce better drivers on Japanese roads? Absolutely no way!!!

 

[Jason B]

Bureaucracy! I'm totally against making recertification mandatory! Wise, yes, mandatory no! Why should I have to pay for someone else's ignorance? As with most diving accidents the diver was unaware and irresponsible. Those same divers would find ways to get around the policy. They would take the cheapest re cert course...and probably sleep through it! I'm a doctor and I like what Valwood said! CE courses! Sure their required, but if your a good doc they shouldn't need to be! Once again it all comes back to DIVER RESPONSIBILITY! We all know what OSHA, ADA and Insurance companies have done to health care. Its starts by trying to enforcing common sense and then degrades into another useless hoop that just makes everyone mad they have to jump through it!

I can see it now. The course starts out as a simple check of the log book. Then it changes to checking the log book and putting your gear together. Then dive companies realize they could charge for this "refresher course". Since the above only takes a few minutes they decide to throw in a lecture to make the course your now PAYING for worthwhile! Truthfully, I just want to dive. Diving is like riding a bike! If the bike doesn't change you could probably still ride it in a few years. If in few years everyone riding unicycles, maybe you better rethink jumping on for a ride. If you have never seen a BC before, or are asking why they now have two regulator??? Maybe you should rethink jumping in the ocean.

Hmmmm, do I deserve change for my two cents

P.S. No matter what we do, there will still be those who need a pick and shovel to find their IQ's.

I agree 100%

 

[mech]

I believe (for the most part) if you want to mess something up just add some government.