divingjd:
You don't take on any liability by checking cards before selling gear or giving air fills. If you have a policy to check, fail to check, and sell gear or air to an uncertified person, then you might be liable, but you''ve probably got the same problem if your policy is not to check. If I were the plaintiff's lawyer for a diving accident case involving an uncertified person and I found out that somebody had sold the victim life support equipment or given an air fill without checking for a card, I would start looking for a nice vacation home someplace. That would not be a tough case to win.
An instructor should know better. While it is industry standards to not sell breathing gas to non-certified folks, there is
no such standards regarding equipment sales! Review the PADI facility requirements yourself. heck, give the folks at PADI a call. Grandma walks in to buy a reg as a Christmas gift...do you not sell it to her because she isn't a diver? What about all the online equipment sales?
Hell, you don't even need to be a certified divers to own a dive shop and then you buy life support equipment by the truckload!
As I said, an instructor should know better.
On another note, I have been wondering for a week when you guys were going to get around to talking about starting your own certification agency. I did not expect anybody to suggest issuing cards individually or doing away with cards.
]
Why? Why do we need an agency? Do you go to an agency to learn mountain climbing or other potentially dangerous sports? This agency nonsense is stricktly a diving thing.
If things are as bad as you say, why don't you start your own agency? Mike Ferrara has stopped teaching because of the problems he perceives, and then tells everybody else that they should change PADI. If you really think they are cranking out certifications for people who are totally unsafe and are going to kill themselves, and you know the better way that will make comfortable, confident, safe divers, then isn't the logical answer to either change PADI yourself or start your own agency? On the theories expressed in this thread, you could revolutionize the industry. Your course and instructional methods would attract the students and set the standard in the industry and everyone would be forced to follow along.
Valid thoughts to examine. I was a OADI instructor and owned a PADI dive shop. though I tried, I was totally unseccessful in having any influence at all on PADI.
As for starting an agency...I already own and run a business and have niether the time, resources or inclination to go back into the dive business.
I also don't care anything at all about saving or fixing the industry. I share my experiences in the dive industry and the opinions that grew from them strictly for the purpose of providing information to others who might make use of it. Other divers and students of diving concern me because I view them as peers and I went through many of the same problems they have but I have no interest in helping the agencies. They already got enough from me.
A lot of the comments here have involved PADI and whether it is OK to teach more than the PADI standards. I've never taken a PADI course and don't know their standards, so I can't say. It would surprise me if there weren't other agencies that would permit you to teach above the minimum standards. I know that SSI permits it. SSI says the course is 20% content specified by the instructor. I don't know if you think that 20% gives you the freedom you need, but I'm pretty sure you guys aren't ready to be SSI instructors anyway, because SSI requires shop affiliation. Isn't there some agency other than PADI that will let you be an independent instructor and teach the class you want to teach? Why are you guys complaining about it and insisting that everybody else do something about it? At least loosebits and FIXXERVI6 are doing something about it, asking people to ask them before they sign up for an OW class and encouraging them to seek out a more comprehensive class. They are trying to educate the students, who otherwise would not have any idea what to look for, other than faster and cheaper, which sounds good to almost all of them.
This board and specifically this forum is about education and sharing ideas so there are lots of us contributing to the education of others. Personally, I can't ask local divers to consult me before signing up for a class because the three closest class that I could recommend is in Detroit, Ohio (I think) and Kentucky. I'm in Indiana and can't really recommend anything local that I know of. I will say that one local shop has new owners so I can't say anything about them one way or the other.[QUQOTE]
I don't agree with everything you guys are saying, but you've got a lot of good ideas, and you seem to care it about it, so why not write the book, start the agency, issue your own cards? Don't just drop out or fight a losing battle with PADI.[/QUOTE]
For me, the book is still a possibility. My wife and I discussed it again the other day and I still really can't decide exactly how to approach it. Specifically, I haven't really defined the scope of it.
I won't issue my own cards because I'm not goint to put the effort into searching for an insurance carrier who would be willing to provide UW liability insurance.
I already addressed the agency issue some but the first tier customer of the agency is the shop and instructor. Shops want to certify lots of divers and sell equipment. They won't take well to anything thet they percieve as making that harder. In the current business model that's most common in the dive industry an agency that I might invision wouldn't generate any interest at all.
Why shouldn't we just drop out of the fight and is there a fight at all? As much as I like diving and as interested as I am in dive instruction, there are other things in life. As far as world problems that we can devote ourselves to trying to fix, this doesn't rate all that high on the scale. I mean really...it's a few fairly wealthy people who buy some fancy toys, a certification, make a mess of the underwater environment where they dive and a few who get hurt doing something they chose to do. Small stuff really. I guess, in all honesty, spending a little time here on the board discussing the issue and some time at dive sites rubbing elbows with other divers, including new divers as well as instructors, is about all I'm willing to invest in the matter beyond what I've already invested. For the record, though, I did spend a few years and about all my personal resources running a dive shop with the intention of offering an alternative. I ran out of steam and money.
