Rob:
None of us want to die or get injured by contact with a watercraft while diving. However, many of us accept the inherent danger with diving and proceed with the activity as a calculated risk. Diving with watercraft is one of the those risks, but the important thing to remember is we do it because we want to dive. If we have already accepted those risks now, many of us are unwilling to do anything that may potentially take away or restrict that activity. In other words your cause is not worth the calculated risk of jeopardizing our current lake access.
Ironically, your argument is somewhat flawed in that if you were truly concerned about the rest of us divers being injured or killed you would be lobbying for the elimination of diving all together in our lakes. After all, since there are documented scuba related accidents/injuries at the lake (none of which have related to dive flag violations), historically, the only way to prevent the accidents would be to eliminate it. Yet you are ready to push action that has no historical precedence. It does not seem consistent.
Your position (as it pertains to our local lakes) is based solely on a perceived risk with no prior substantiation or supporting evidence to indicate the probablitliy of a likely occurrence. Basically, your stepping up to the plate with a batting average of 0.000.
However, those who oppose your cause have history and precedence on their side:
Historically, every year there are multiple fatalities at our lakes that are boating and/or alcohol related. These are real-not some concern we have made up in our heads or on our computers. Law enforcement needs all the resources it has and then some to prevent and/or assists when these events happen. You apparently have not spent much time boating on our local waterways as some of us have. If you had you would of already recognized the legitimate dangers that occur every day and also realized how trivial of a cause you are rallying support for is.
I have only been diving for a few years and love it. However, I have been boating for more than 35 years (26 in AZ) which includes hundreds (probably closer to a 1000 ) times at Pleasant which used to include year round training back in the days when I was into tournament barefoot skiing and waterskiing. I have had numerous high speed close calls and seen many more (again a calculated risk for what I loved to do). There are some real problem boaters out there (especially when alcohol is in the mix). But these boaters pose a significantly more legitimate risk to others who spend all their time on the surface of water and in locations where higher speeds occur. Frankly, as one of these boaters, I resent the fact that you are bent on wasting the time of our law enforcement officers who are already understaffed trying to protect us from real threats on the lake so they can protect us from a psuedo problem that has never occurred.
Historically, access at Lake Pleasant has consistently decreased over the years. At one time after the completion of the new Waddell dam, access to the Agua Fria, Humbug, Coles & Goose Bay (to name a few) were all open with unlimited access. However, over they years each of these areas become limited to specific user groups. BTW some of these include "No Swimming" which by your definition, has already limited access for scuba diving. I digress, sorry. Anyway, historically, in every case when an apparent safety issue was recognized the response was not to add more enforcement but to restrict or eliminate access.
The only group that has successfully fought for increased access to Pleasant was the PWC crowd when in the mid 80's they were restricted to a single area for use. A costly lawsuit won them access-however, they have since been completely banned at many other lakes and receive one of the highest percentage of citations as users. They won a battle but lost the war.
Historically, the county does not care about you, your little group or us as scuba divers. I was part of a much larger group at one time fighting for access to recent cove closures we once used as training sites. We attended several board meetings, contacted politicians, etc., and got nowhere. At one time we even got one park ranger to admit that unless we were fisherman they did not care one bit about us, our cause, and wished we would just go to a different lake (should of taped that phone call).
So you see, based on this history, I am fully confident that even if you are slightly successful in putting additional pressure on the law enforcement community to enforce dive flag laws (which is asinine to begin with since the law is so vaguely written), you will impugn the dive community way more than you will protect it. Mosquitoes only get swatted when they call attention to themselves by bugging someone. Be careful who you bug with your cause.
I will wager the citation cost of a dive flag violation you see more tickets issued to divers from straying away from their flag than to boaters for approaching them.
I am confident you will eventually see restricted access for divers enforced near active waterways-especially around boat ramps. In other words I believe Vista Point, Biesemeyer Point & the spillway will become off limits to divers.
I would not be surprised to see shore diving restricted to a single area (not of our choosing) which is away from any boat traffic so to protect from this new found danger.
Frankly, it is not worth it. The other option is to MYOB, dive safe and enjoy the access we currently have that other lake users don't.
MG - Original member of the LP5 (but membership is growing)
Well I guess I did it again. Allowed myself to get sucked into participating into this worn out thread. I need therapy-better yet I am going diving (better make sure to pack my Dive Flag Regulations Strickly Enforced sign to go on my float).
