Tech through PADI or TDI?
- Thread starter Black Cat
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
The dive depth limits only apply to training dives. If a PADI pro is working as a DM, there is no restriction from PADI on the depth. PADI has no rules governing such things, and it has no authority to make such rules. Any restrictions come from the employer of the DM. This happens every day around the world.
Just as an example of what I wrote in my last post, in Belize dive operations have routinely taken relatively new, sometimes brand new, OW divers to the Blue Hole, going to depths of 130 feet and even beyond. A couple years ago PADI published a public letter begging them to stop doing that by imposing local rules to prevent it. That was the best it could do--it has no authority to do any more than that.
Gotcha. My shop has told me not to take people past their certification limits. My understanding was that the ultimate back end to the reason for that is that the training agency would not be able to support me in a lawsuit because, from their perspective, they would have to say that I took someone past their certification limits. So, in that sense, it feels to me like they are making the rules.
Well, it's complicated, and it all comes down to liability and casting blame.
When I was on a liveaboard in Australia a couple of years ago, on two different occasions the dive leader announced rules that limited our diving, and in each case he said they had no choice--they were PADI rules that they had to follow. Not wanting to make a scene, each time I took him aside afterwards and called him on it. In both cases, PADI did not have any rules to that effect whatsoever, even for training dives. In both cases, PADI had no jurisdiction. He admitted that they were company policies designed to keep them ultra-safe, and they just blamed PADI to deflect any customer anger.
A growing number of dive shops are adopting policies like this, though. Many require at least an AOW certification for more advanced dives--I saw that happen myself in a dive shop in Florida. A diver was not allowed to do a dive to a deeper wreck because he only presented an OW card. He said he was actually an assistant instructor and was just following the common (and foolish) advice to show only a low level card. Unfortunately for him, the shops internet was not working, so they could not look up his actual certification level.
The reason is liability. If the shop decides you are good enough to do a more advanced dive using their judgment, that judgment can be challenged in the case of an accident. If they have a hard and fast policy of a certification granted by an agency, then the burden shifts away from them to the agency. I had an interesting chat about this with that very shop. Their policies and the required wording for dive briefings was carefully chosen to avoid liability.
Understood. But, the point is drilling into it a little deeper. If there is an accident and a lawsuit goes to court, they're going to ask the dive pro why he or she felt it was safe to take the diver to depth NN, right? And, either the agency behind the dive pro is going to also testify that yes, by agency standards, what the dive pro did was fine, or no, by agency standards, what the dive pro did was not fine.
So, would PADI testify that PADI standards have allowance for the possibility of taking a diver with only an OW card on a non-training dive to a depth greater than 60'? Or would they testify that as a dive pro you were acting outside agency standards in taking that diver on that dive, no matter what amount of experience the diver had?
Again, I am not picking on PADI. I'm specifying PADI because you and Kosta are PADI pros and this conversation has pretty much been between the 3 of us, so I am asking you about the agency you teach for.
PADI openly says that its limits are required for training dives and recommended starting points for non-training dives. They recommend that divers stay within the limits of their training and experience. Experience can do the job without further training. In a recent exchange with Karl Shreeves of PADI headquarters, I suggested that their wording on that was not sufficiently clear, and I offered alternative wording. He liked it and said they would implement it in future writing, but that has not happened yet.
There are practical reasons for PADI not to get involved with oversight of individual operations to that degree.
- Doing so would strongly suggest that with such an oversight role, they therefore assume the liability for the actions of the shop. The current PADI liability forms include a separate statement that the student or dive must sign saying the exact opposite--neither the shop nor the instructor is acting as an agent of PADI. That comes from a lawsuit that claimed that two DMs who screwed up on a dive were acting as agents of PADI, and PADI was held liable for their error (which had nothing to do with standards--they screwed up a roll call) to the tune of $2 million.
- A dive operation in Cozumel that does not take OW students beyond 60 feet will be out of business in no time. The same would be true if they refused to take customers through swim throughs without some kind of certification. Imagine if an operator in Truk Lagoon or South Florida or the Philippines refused to let divers enter wrecks without wreck certification. If any agency tried to impose such rules on an operation, that operation would be switching to another agency in 5 minutes.
DevonDiver
N/A
They could pretty easily make it a condition of membership, to both individual pro and/or IRRA (resort) members.
It'd be a simple line of print within the membership contract. It could be implemented globally and universally across the agency at the time of membership renewal.
PADI has absolute authority to impose any membership clauses that they deem beneficial. Providing such clauses do not breach or contradict other laws or regulations across a broad geographical reach.
Such membership stipulations could cover not only depth based restrictions for non-course diving activities, but also other environments (like wreck or cave penetration) or even specialist equipment, for which the customer isn't qualified.
It could save dozens of lives per year.
It'd also make resort/centre memberships (i.e. "5-Star Dive Resort") ... and divemaster memberships... count for something outside of the strict parameters of training courses. Because at the moment they count for nothing.
It's sad to know that many customers might choose a centre to support their fun diving activities in the grossly mistaken belief that these agency "5*" etc statuses actually mean something tangible in respect to that companies' operating standards and the diligent application of duty-of-care.
PADI might lose a tiny number of centres to other agencies as a result, but it wouldn't be drastic. Given that the vast majority of centres globally are PADI members and all would have the same rules to abide by.
I suspect their chief barrier to doing this would be a fear of litigation... that by imposing safety standards on fun diving operations run by it's members the organisation they form a connection with such activities that, until now, they've been able (and glad) to keep their distance from.
We can speculate where the true balance lies between safeguarding diver safety and litigation avoidance / financial safeguards.
Last edited:
Really?
Why not go to any of the annual DAN fatality reports, check out the descriptions of the fatalities, and identify the code numbers for the lives that would have been saved that year.
I'm curious if the recent fatality in Coron, Philippines will make its way in their 2017 report. I certainly will be looking for it.
Similar threads
