PADI vs NAUI

[endurodog]

Your missing the point. When the courses were longer accident rates were higher. Courses are shorter accident rates are lower. Do you really believe that increasing the OW course by 1 or more days will decrease that accident rate? I have drawn my own conclussions, I have seen a decrease in accident rates and I don't believe what you are advocating would have any impact on those rates. There will always be an accident rate, want to show me something show me how the now shorter courses have a negative impact on accident rates.

 

[Blackwood]

Your missing the point. When the courses were longer accident rates were higher. Courses are shorter accident rates are lower. Do you really believe that increasing the OW course by 1 or more days will decrease that accident rate? I have drawn my own conclussions, I have seen a decrease in accident rates and I don't believe what you are advocating would have any impact on those rates. There will always be an accident rate, want to show me something show me how the now shorter courses have a negative impact on accident rates.

Wait wait... are you suggesting that accident rates vary proportionally with course length (i.e. if course lengths were increased, there you be more accidents)?

Accident rates likely have decreased at least in part due to improved equipment. I stands to reason that longer courses will capitalize on that trend by more thoroughly teaching students to address increasingly rare malfunctions.


Does anyone have a chart of average diver age vs time? I'm curious if it's becoming a younger or older activity.

I also wonder if the percentage of divers who dive independent of supervision has changed much.

 

[flots am]

Your missing the point. When the courses were longer accident rates were higher. Courses are shorter accident rates are lower. Do you really believe that increasing the OW course by 1 or more days will decrease that accident rate?

If you dig into whatever stats you're using, you'll discover that they're completely useless. There is no data available that indicates the total number of dives or divers or dive conditions within any paticular time frame, which means that any stats are just wild-assed-guess.

Take me, for example. I did a bunch of dives last year. Nobody except me knows how many. I didn't get hurt, so DAN knows nothing and I fill my own tanks so there aren't any shop records. I could go a lifetime like this and do thousands of dives and never show up as a dot in anybody's "risk data". And I'm not alone. I have a ton of friends that could easily say the same thing and most dive more than me.

Conversely, I could get bent tomorrow. DAN might have the chamber data, but they still wouldn't know if this was 1 incident out of 1 dive or 1 out of 10,000 dives.

flots.

 

[Thalassamania]

Your missing the point. When the courses were longer accident rates were higher. Courses are shorter accident rates are lower. Do you really believe that increasing the OW course by 1 or more days will decrease that accident rate? I have drawn my own conclussions, I have seen a decrease in accident rates and I don't believe what you are advocating would have any impact on those rates. There will always be an accident rate, want to show me something show me how the now shorter courses have a negative impact on accident rates.

There is no hard data to support your contention. Accidents peaked in the late 1970s when two things collided, perhaps it was chance, but I think not: the first was the lowering of required course hours and the second was the creation of a lot of poorly qualified instructors. Not only did the number of accidents peak, but so did fatalities that occurred DURING TRAINING.

Let's look for a minute at the fact that within the scientific diving community there has never been a training fatality, where either there has never been a course graduate who died in an accident (or where perhaps there was a single one), where the standard of training is 100 hours, and where every instructor is selected and overseen by a Diving Control Board that is composed of interested individuals who, "know what it takes." It would not be much of a stretch to make the claim that applying the same standards and selectivity to diving in general would result in lower risks. Just how much you could reduce that program and oversight, and still reap the benefit, is open to discussion, but the fact that at the existing endpoint the benefit exists is a documented fact.

 

[endurodog]

Thal and others the fact is that diving accidents have gone down over the decades the same decades that training time has been shrank. Like it or not it's a fact, as Thal has stated "It would not be much of a stretch to make the claim" that this proves the point.

There is no hard evidence that shorter courses have made diving accidents more common. There is no hard evidence that longer courses would decrease accidents.

We all can twist any statement, lets look at Thals statement about the 100 course, who is taking 100 hour courses, those with a increased interest in diving. Now if we can talk the student that is in it for the weekend course into even taking a longer course is he going to put the same effort into the course.

At some point all training becomes a diminshing returns. For a basic student trying to get in the water where do we hit that? Where we make the course longer, more expensive, that he just says he isn't going to do it at all.

 

[endurodog]

If you dig into whatever stats you're using, you'll discover that they're completely useless. There is no data available that indicates the total number of dives or divers or dive conditions within any paticular time frame, which means that any stats are just wild-assed-guess.


flots.

There are stats on dive accidents. Those are the stats I reference. In trying to answer the basic question then and not use stats. Why make the courses longer and tougher. I stand by the figures that accidents have gone down, the training is working, and increasing the time in the class will drive students away and not decrease the accident rate. If it's not to decrease accidents then why do it?

Now with that said there are many factors that influence all of this and I understand that but I'm just trying to get to the point of what is the rational to increased class length. I have my beliefs of why some are so strongly for this and I'm trying to understand if there is some reasonable rational for it

 

[Walter]

I think many of us are in agreement about this. So, what's the next step? How do we affect change?

Overall, you can't do much. In small areas we can all make a difference. Don't hire instructors unless they tewach top notch classes. If you are an instructor, don't use agencies with low standards or who don't allow instructors to add requirements to their classes. Help others learn the difference between good classes and the typical class.

The arguement of increased training in my mind has 2 sides. One is the people saying "Take more training because it will increase your enjoyment of the sport." The other side is "The current training sucks, it's all wrong and you need more training because all these 2 day divers suck".

They are not mutually exclusive and an important point you've missed is the longer, more comprehensive classes are actually easier and less elitist. Thal teaches science students to dive. I may be over simplifying it a tad, but they are basically nerds and geeks, they are not typically what I think of when I think of folks in peak physical condition. They would probably flunk out of most PADI classes, yet they take a class that most folks think is harder than the typical PADI class and they pass it, often with little or no difficulty. This is not about being elitist, it's quite the opposite. I specialize in folks who are afraid to learn to dive.

I am a firm believer that we have more divers in the activity because of the shorter courses.

I agree if you define a diver as someone with a c-card. If you define a diver as someone who actively dives, we have fewer divers because of the shorter courses. Most "divers" don't continue to dive.

 

[flots am]

There are stats on dive accidents. Those are the stats I reference.

I'm sure there are stats on accidents. DAN knows how many claims they've paid.

However there are no stats on the number of dives done, so nobody has any idea if diving is more or less dangerous than it has been in the past.

Do your stats include me? My buddies? I think not.

Who else isn't included?

How can you calculate a risk when you have no measurements?

flots.

 

[endurodog]

How can you calculate a risk when you have no measurements?

flots.

There is a measurement as I have stated. Now if you don't like the measurement or don't feel it's complete enough to draw a conclusion that is way different than no measurement wouldn't you agree???? If you get bent and go to the hospital or you die it is going to end up in the database unless you lie about the cause.

 

[endurodog]

I agree if you define a diver as someone with a c-card. If you define a diver as someone who actively dives, we have fewer divers because of the shorter courses. Most "divers" don't continue to dive.

Now this is an interesting topic and a bit of topic but I cert'd in 83 and it was a long course and I'm the only one that I know from that course that is still diving. How to keep people diving after a cert? This is an intersting subject and I'm sure some out there have some really good ideas on it. I'm at a loss, no opinion if you can believe that, haaaa.