This may ruffle some feathers, but it has always been a pet peeve of mine.
To me it looks like the Dive Industry set themselves on a path over 10 years ago, to achieve a point when EVERY SINGLE PERSON on the planet would be considered "fit to dive", if they were old enough and had no major medical complication.
In snow skiing, there have always been "never-evers"....go to a place like Vail, and everyone who wants beginning instruction will line up, make some turns or try to walk on skiis without falling.....most will go to a group like snowplow or stem turn of cristie into the hill, or whatever, but typically one lucky instructor will get the "skiiers" that have no coordination, and are considered to be without a chance of ever becoming skiers...the "never-evers"....
they will stay in an almost flat area, and will really never leave this "skiing zone" of safety for them.
Diving has never-evers also, but the remain unrecognized alot of the time. Whether they are unrecognized because of the cost of not selling them more instruction, or more dive gear, or the politically correct issues of pretending that EVERYONE can dive..."never-evers" slip through the cracks, and they are people who are very likely to have a fatal or near fatal accident.
When we see them on boats in S Fla, they are clearly afraid, they are unaware of everything around them, they have horrible bouyancy and trim, breathe like a vaccum, and really don't want to be underwater ( in alot of cases)..some are there because of a spouse, or a parent, or someone who has pushed them into it...Others, may have convinced themself that this is something they need to prove to themself, and the world, if it kills them...and it really could.....
Way too many people today, the non-athlete type in particular, do not understand what danger really is, often until it is too late.
I only mention this, because in the 60's and even to the 70's, the people who wanted to dive WERE REAL ADVENTURERS, they were "often" very athletic ( versus today's new diver candidates where this is maybe 2 to 5 % as very athletic)...it was a much hardier person who wanted to be a diver, back in the old days, and even the ones that decided they did not need training, had better safety records than the new divers of today ( I have ZERO statistics for this( only memories) --it is just what I expect to be borne out if someone wanted to did up stats on this
Regards,
DanV
p.s.
WKPP never had this problem, because only people who really had all the coordination and correct mental attitude etc, were even allowed in to be mentored....if they did not measure up, they were OUT.
p.p.s
The point I was working on here......is that the major training agencies NEED better screening for who CAN NOT be passed in Open Water I. This on the industry side.....On our side, as the divers...the big peer group..the ones who spread the culture and beliefs, the mores and expectations in diving---WE need to Change our culture...along the lines of what Thal was saying earlier...WE need to chastize the undertrained or underskilled--in a nice way of course, but make it clear that they should not be diving without more help doing things right ( no reference to DIR indended
We as divers need to come down on the bad apples in instruction, and on the divers who showcase poor and dangerous skillsets....AND, as a group, we should try to point new and unskilled divers to a higher quality of instruction....I don't think there is any doubt GUE is on a great path for this, but GUE is not available to be a "direct" solution all over the US or the world..but where it is not available, GUE could still be used to set the bar for what is available.