Dive Flag Violations

[scubadada]

The citation was in Florida. The statue cited is in Florida. Other states are interesting but not applicable. The pros and cons of dive flags is an interesting topic, but not applicable to the Florida statute.

 

[CT-Rich]

I agree regional differences and a relatively small sample size may very well make achieving a high degree of statistical significance let alone statistical near certainty difficult (impossible?), but it can still be "objectively quantified" (as you list perceived pros/cons/risks/incidents, and also perhaps surveys in terms of near misses).
I personally believe would pretty easy to demonstrate the need to revise certain dive flag regulations, even if it were simply having regulations recognize the rationale to require dive flags is a lot more complicated than other seaming "safety related" regulations like requiring children to wear life jackets on a boat while it's in motion and "it entirely depends" whether there is a compelling safety need for the law to force dive flag use...

Altering a safety regulation will likely require compelling evidence of it’s benefit.

What’s the old saying? Regulations are written in blood?

No one is going to liberalize the law, unless money or lives are lost. Imagine you are the legislator that champions the law to make dive flags optional. The first dimwit that dies without a flag is going to be the club with which you will be beaten to death.

We are talking about Florida

 

[Dutchman]

Wow I live in Colorado but spend a lot of time diving in FL. From Melbourne to keys and NEVER had a dive flag. Guess I have just been lucky. But FL actually has some agency or officer that looks for scuba diver activity? Surely in this day they have better things to do with their time. WOW guess I will get a blow up from Force E and let it float out there next time. $20 better than a $109 fine. I originally thought you got caught be the Coast Guard boat. WOW this is crazy.

 

[GiraffeMarineSalvage]

The citation was in Florida. The statue cited is in Florida. Other states are interesting but not applicable. The pros and cons of dive flags is an interesting topic, but not applicable to the Florida statute.

As opposed to further thread drift from the original post, can we break off a broader dialogue related to dive flag pros/cons, what regulations currently are, and what people believe the regulations "should be?"

Altering a safety regulation will likely require compelling evidence of it’s benefit.

What’s the old saying? Regulations are written in blood?

No one is going to liberalize the law, unless money or lives are lost. Imagine you are the legislator that champions the law to make dive flags optional. The first dimwit that dies without a flag is going to be the club with which you will be beaten to death.

We are talking about Florida

The numbers are admittedly low in relation to proving statistical significance (and there's a lot of "unknown") but diver fatalities due to entanglement (such as two in 2018 in the analysis DAN did at DIVING FATALITIES - DAN Annual Diving Report 2020 Edition - NCBI Bookshelf) are notable compared to no fatalities known to be caused by a lack of a dive flag. (Which is not to say getting struck by a boat, with or with a dive flag, isn't a very real risk when on the surface or that it's prudent to use a flag/DSMB when on on the surface, only that entanglement definitely is a very real hazard known to have been a contributing factor which has resulted in fatalities...).