From the article: "The American Medical Association (AMA) upper limit of the BAC for driving a vehicle in the United States is 0.05 percent. Surely diving with any alcohol on board would be foolish, considering the alien environment (water) and the complex skills required to follow no decompression procedures."
The statement above demonstrates the unmitigated bias in the article written by Dr. Ernest Campbell and published by DAN.
Aside from merely being poorly worded, it creates a false premise and goes on to base its argument on that falsehood.
The poorly worded part, "surely diving with any alcohol on board would be foolish," is extremely vague at best. Does he mean to say that if I am on an extended vacation on my boat and I have stocked three cases of beer for a month long trip with a crew of four that I would be foolish to scuba dive until that entire stock of alcohol is exhausted? Even if my dive buddy and I had consumed absolutely no alcohol in the previous week? Or does he mean a zero tolerance level for alcohol in the bloodstream? He does not make the statement clear. Anyhow, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is using a medical term "on board" to indicate BAC percentage instead of the nautical term.
However he makes the statement that the AMA's upper limit for driving a vehicle is 0.05 percent BAC, but then cites an "alien environment" and "complex skills" that are required for scuba diving as a basis for his zero tolerance stance. I'm sorry, but to me, the water is not some alien environment. In fact driving a car down an expressway with traffic merging and all the idiots on the road who seem at times to be out to get me, appears to be a much more difficult environment that would require superior reaction time and more complex skills that swimming around on a reef looking at the pretty fish. Seriously.
The complex skills he claims are required for
no decompression procedures, make the man sound like he is afraid of diving specifically and the water in general. For a leisurely reef dive the no decompression procedure that I follow is to glance at my computer regularly and see that I have plenty of time left before I have to think about surfacing. It's really no more complex that watching the instrument cluster on your dashboard while driving. Really, Dr. Campbell.
Of course, my computer might fail. But then if I have been paying attention, I should know how much nitrogen I have in my system, how much air I have left and how deep I am. With that information along with my experience and training, I should have a good intuitive understanding how to safely decompress. Especially if I haven't been pushing my limits.
Compare that with the situation one might encounter on the road. Up ahead a hundred feet on the expressway a car in the right hand lane has a blowout and veers into your lane. At expressway speed, your gut reaction may make the difference between life and death. It's not just your life at stake. The lives of your passengers and even other drivers and the passengers in other cars depend on your response in the next second and a half or so.
So, which situation has the potential for greater impact to innocent lives of people around you? In my opinion, driving carries a much greater responsibility.
However, if I get schnockered, go diving and kill myself, I have done something stupid and paid the price for my folly. I really don't expect anyone to feel sorry for me.
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Bud