What do Safe Divers do that Unsafe Divers don't?

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An excerpt from firefighting; just change "fire" to "dive"...

"The most successful firefighters are not those who religiously follow every written rule to the letter, but those who recognize, accurately, their own skills and limitations. They take advantage of what they can do well, and mitigate the traits that could lead to an undesirable outcome.
The most dangerous firefighters are those who do not know what they don’t know. When they were teenagers, they thought they were 10 feet tall, bulletproof, and knew everything. Now after fighting fire a little here and there, and taking some stupid risks without getting seriously injured or at times not even knowing they were taking risks, they think it can continue, which puts themselves, and if they are a supervisor, those around them in precarious situations."
 
I would be on edge diving with somebody that has an "unsafe" attitude - I imagine no buddy at all might be safer than one that puts you and them at risk...
 
Stick with your buddy. My personal story: I was diving in Honduras, I guess I had about 200 dives at the time. I was buddied up with an insta-buddy who was part of a group of 3 guys who were on vacation together. The boat dropped us off on the reef where we would swim along the reef to a wreck then to the shore. About 10 minutes into the dive, all 3 left me. I had done this dive lots of times before, so I wasn't worried but I didn't like being left alone.

I enjoyed my dive, checked out the wreck for seahorses and then made my way to shore. At the safety stop was a chain attached to a surface buoy. One of the divers was hanging upside down hanging onto the chain. He didn't have enough weight and his tank was buoyant. I checked his air, saw he had plenty did my safety stop and swam to shore. His two buddies were on shore when I got there. I just shook my head and walked to the rinse tank.
The other two left their own buddy.

Would I leave him now? Probably not. Probably would have hung around until he was ready to let go of that chain and made sure he got to shore ok.
 

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