When should a shop request your C-Card?

[Rhone Man]

Never.

Darwinism will soon work its normal magic.

 

[gcarter]

My LDS will ask for a card if you're getting an air fill and they don't know you yet. If you're getting a fill for paintballing or remote work with pneumatic tools, that's no problem at all. They don't ask for a card because they're scuba police. They ask for evidence of certification or experience for people's own good.

Think of it as a sanity filter for people who *don't* know better. Sure, you can learn to dive without formal certification, but that's not who it's designed to "catch". It's intended to catch the person who thinks, "You know, I think I want to scuba dive. It looks easy enough. I'll just buy me some gear and go do it." While I'm certain we'd all admire such a person's drive (and means, for that matter), but I for one really don't want them going off on their own (without even magazine articles or a good book) to start diving based on TV experience. Diving may not be nearly as deadly as some people would apparently claim, but ear injuries, DCS, and especially lung over expansion injuries (e.g. embolisms) *are* concerns for people who would dive without *any* instruction (even as little as a dreaded resort course, hehe).

Carding people is really about two things. The obvious one is the lawyers, but we should not discount the well-intentioned saw-it-on-TV people. We can dislike the lawyers all we want, but *asking* for evidence of certification or experience is hardly onerous. It's so easy to get a card these days (at least one agency, NAUI, even has an "Experienced Scuba Diver" option to provide non-carded experienced divers with a card with an absolute minimum of fuss -- I can do it in one confined water session and one two-dive boat ride if it comes down to that), and you don't even need your card with you now that there are cert lookups on the web sites. I think I can handle that for the ability to catch the unknowingly-unsafe divers-to-be.

So what does carding achieve then, if I can just say its for paintball and get it anyway?

 

[gcarter]

For the record, I do know what a significant figure is, and it has nothing to do with my wife (although hers is pretty significant too).

Careful... that could go either way, depending on the mood she is in when she reads it.....

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Making sure only certified divers can dive? We can only suggest that people do it. Not require them. I can go online and buy a full set of gear, a compressor, tanks, and a copy of scuba for dummies and never have to see an instructor or shop. I can be denied entry to privately owned quarries but there is no lay requiring anyone to have a cert card. Would this extremely stupid? Yep. But hey stupid is one of natures ways of thinning the herd.

the shops I know of only ask for a card for air fills. And many times they don't do that. They are not required to by law. If theur agency requires it so be it but the worst that could happen if they don't is the agency suspends them and as a long as money is coming in that ain't gonna happen. Look at the stuff they get away with in some places. Selling a tank of air to someone is no different than selling em a bottle of water. What they do with it when they leave is not the shop's business. Or mine.

 

[Thalassamania]

None, you don't need a driver's license to buy a car or a pilot's license to buy a plane or a Captain's license to buy a boat. Dive Shops should perform their function, the sale of dive gear, period. They should not be the self-appointed police of the industry.

Rentals, because of some peculiar liabilities, might be a special case.

 

[Zaixon]

I dont think a cert card should be required for any purchase at a dive shop. I've bought gear from multiple shops and have never been asked for a cert card. sometimes I get asked for my nitrox cert card when getting different mixes but even for air fills usually dont get asked. I mean you can easily buy all your gear online without a cert card I see walking into a dive shop no different. I mean you dont have to be certified to dive, sure it is suggested and recommended but nothing stops someone just from learning the different hazards and reading a book then diving from their own boat or the beach. Thats not the smartest thing to do but it CAN be done.... Now having a cert card for going on a dive trip with a dive boat is a lot different. Everytime I get on a new dive boat you bet i'd get asked for my cert card. This is just the dive op protecting themselves and assure that you know what you are doing (sometimes it makes me wonder bout some people lol) but they look at your card and you sign the release. I believe that's the only time that your cert card absolutely comes into play.

 

[blackvans1234]

The point of my original post was not to shift responsibility onto the dive shop for my safety, but for the dive shop to cover their own asses by those that try to shift the responsibility.

It doesnt do my dive career any good to sue if im dead, so why would I shift the responsibility onto them?
I cannot figure out why so many readers of this thread think that I am one of those people
The entire reason for the survey/post is to see opinions on when dive shops should cover their own butts. Why would they need to? because in the USA everyone is out to sue everyone, and there are frivolous lawsuits that WIN. Why else does there have to be "Caution, this cup is hot" on the side of coffee cups?

 

[DMDavid]

There was a time long, long ago when I would get carded for beer or c-carded for air fills.

Now the kids behind the counter must be thinking that this old fart must have been one of Jacques Cousteau original dive buddies, so they give me a beer and fill my tanks without ever asking for my c-card or license.

On a side note: I know a guy that bought a couple of tanks from a dive shop that gave him free fills for the life of those tanks and no one has ever asked him for his c-card since he always produced his free air for life card.
He was never a certified diver in all the years he went to that one shop for fills.


FB-Florida Scuba Diver

 

[SDE Dennis]

Air, as you could be purchasing for a gift or buying the gear before certification.

 

[dkramer]

I've always been carded for air & charters if I was in a shop where they didn't know me.