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When should a shop request your C-Card?
- Thread starter blackvans1234
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Your card should be checked when they are providing you with gas.
Why? What business of theirs is it if you want to go diving with it or just use it to inflate car tyres? What's wrong with personal responsibility?
I don't think that shops should check your card for gear purchases. What happens if someone is buying gear for a gift? Come to think of it, I don't think that I've ever had to show any card except for my visa to buy gear. Fills and trips are a completely different ball game, if a shop wants me to show them a card I'll show them one. Of course it's probably going to be my PADI Lobster Hunter card 
I've actually found that as the fills I'm getting increase in complexity (50%, 100% and trimix) I get carded less.
I've actually found that as the fills I'm getting increase in complexity (50%, 100% and trimix) I get carded less.
ScubaSteve
Wow.....what a DB
There is no point asking for a card when buying standard gear. For recreational divers, carding for air and charters/diving should be sufficient.
At the shop I worked at, we only carded for fills and charters. We would have customers that were buying equipment for gifts (including my wife, who is not certified), so we did not refuse purchase because of being non-certified. We did not sell fill cards, so we didn't have to deal with that question. We had the lowest fill price in the area and did not feel the need to discount our price even more with fill cards.
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.
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.
I don't believe that the shop has a responsibility to fight Darwin on anyone else's behalf. Nobody has ever asked to see my driver's license at a gas-station before either.... I would think it could be in the shop's best interest in terms of risk-management to ask for a C-card if someone gets a tank filled, but really... people DO need to take responsibility for their own actions!
R..
R..
Too much nannying is the main reason there are so many incidents. People end up now taking absolutely no responsibility and always look to blame someone else when things don't work. Let people decide for themselves what they want to do and take responsibility for once.
If Darwin wins then so be it - it was their choice.
If Darwin wins then so be it - it was their choice.
ScubaSteve
Wow.....what a DB
I fully support personal responsibility for one's actions however how far do you take it? When the inevitable increase in stupid accidents happens, do you refuse to spend safety and rescue resources because it is their own fault? Do we, as divers, simply refuse to help anybody just in case it is their fault?
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