Should Cert Cards be for life? My cert cards seem to be worthless!

[drrich2]

The question of whether there's government regulation can be deeper than it initially looks. Technically, there may not be. But...

1.) In the event of a bad outcome & a lawsuit, perceived industry standards/common practices can be used in determining a standard to judge a defendant against.

2.) Insurance companies know this.

3.) Most any sane dive business or instructor considers insurance necessary to operate.

Put that all together, and you get de facto regulation.

And while the government has a singular reputation in regards to foolish regulatory action, from what I understand, it is not the only source of such. Bad over-regulation is bad over-regulation.

Richard.

 

[NAM001]

You have hit on the primary reason ther will always be an opposition to any approach to keep new divers up ato speed and that is """""""It would stop a lot of occasional casual divers, and hurt business at a lot of tourist destinations."""""". I dont think any one believes you should be self reliant as a prereq to gettnig in the water. I certainly dont. the need to be self reliant is driven by those who lack of the most basic water skills being allowed to be inthe water. Creating a tax???? I dont comprehend that at all. If you call it a tax then there is a way out of it and that would be to get your AOW card, but there must be a required, legitimate number of dives to get one, other than a dozen in the same pond.

Any approach to asuring that the most basic divers retain thier abilities is doomed so long as the standard is "Will the cure fix ALL problems" Nothing will ever meet that standard, however if the group you are out with becomes a group of 2-3 high risk divers as opposed to 10 or so I think it is a worthy endevor. Any one can fake the logs to qualify for a higher level to get out of refresher's but you cant save anyone from thier self. You can however save most from what they dont know about them selves. So making the basic OW good for one year fixes that issue of inexperienced divers from getting over thier head. My opinion : Aow needs 50 dives logged to start AOW. I think anyone with 50 dives should never be denied. An Aow card on site should represent a minimum fifty dive history. With that many dives the threat of forgetting the basics are nill compared to the NW that has not been wet since thier ceritification years ago. It would save the new divers from them selves, save unsuspected buddies from them also. I also fully support boats using certification appropriate dive sites. I know "the OW is good for 130 ft. 60' is only a recommendation. " Whole other arguement that is still driven by the $$$$$ factor.

Granted we dont need any government regulation to fix the problem. That will come on its own unless the industry itself takes action to fix it. There is the argument that the amount of incidents is very minor in comparison to the number of divers out there. It is not so small when compared to the number of Active divers. I diffrentiate incidents from accidents, incidents lead to accidents. Its unfare to say 6 accidents out of 12 million divers, there for we have no problem.

Any control of the system has to be at the access points of diving. (boats , lake gates , ect). We are gettng to an age where dumming down anything is the norm. One day we will be wishing it was as good as it is now. When too many bad events start adding up then the ins companies will take over with thier plolicy conditions. Then hands will be tied tighter than any govt legislation could ever enforce. But once again as long as there is $$$ at stake nothing will happen.

So, the main thrust of mandatory re-certification is raising the quality of insta-buddies on dive boats? That would be an interesting premise. I don't think that's what's driving all the pro-recert. people, but it's an interesting angle regardless.

I question the likelihood that it would do much in that regard. Some, but not a lot consistently.

It would stop a lot of occasional casual divers, and hurt business at a lot of tourist destinations. A lot of cruise ship divers will book an excursion & dive an island or two, but if they had to re-cert. to do it, would decide that's the added burden that breaks the camel's back, so to speak. Some of these poor island operators need that business. We'll just see 're-cert. mills' basically collecting a new tax by issuing easy re-cert.s.

There's also the argument that divers should be sufficiently self-reliant as to not require a quality buddying on point protecting them through their dive, nor are you responsibility for your buddy's deficiencies. You should render reasonable assistance, yes, but that doesn't mean you have to chase people down or become a de facto dive master with a student.

Then there's the issue of in essence creating a tax and hassle on large numbers of people to get at the fraction you take issue with, with an intervention that likely won't make the big difference you would hope.

And when the lackluster results of all this lead to carping & griping on Scuba Board and elsewhere, why the answer to this pressing problem will of course be...more regulation!!!

Richard.

P.S.: Re: Obama, who needs slander? The truth alone could keep me going for weeks...

---------- Post added February 12th, 2015 at 11:00 PM ----------

There is no issue with expiration of cards. Try getting a cave intro card. Probably has an expiration of 1 year on it. Thats one year to gain experience and get to the next level. When i researched my cave pipeline most cards had expiration dates on them untill you reached fulll cave.

As the biker goes you dont have to look long when you are being passed by him.

That depends. How long did it take you to catch up and get a better look?

Perhaps the training agencies and dive shops could use more scuba review/refresher type courses, but I doubt if they could get away with placing an expiration date on current c-cards. The cost of the recall or the cost of the class action suit would be quite severe.