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And how do we cure ignorance?... People die because they make ****-poor judgement calls. This has little or nothing to do with "diving agencies." It's about ignorance...
With training ... of course.
And where does training come from?
Why instructors ... of course.
And who defines what (and often how) instructors teach?
Why agencies ... of course.
So ... it rather logically follows, that at least to some degree, agencies bear some level of responsibility for diver ignorance.
If you subscribe to the concept, as I do, that diver training is a zero-defect undertaking, then even a single accident is a "horrible safety record;" and it follows that most all agencies, therefore, have a horrible safety record....
Let's look at the reality of the situation. No agency has a horrible safety record. None of them are even close. As it is, I can find agencies that require snorkels, at least one that will let me opt out due to conditions and another one that believes that snorkels on Scuba are as useful as a screen on a submarine. As an instructor, I can pick and choose the agency I want based just on snorkels... or just on fin pivots... or on a litany of practices and procedures that are important to me and my students. When you have a ruling body, most of these variances would cease to be and I would be forced to conform. Fortunately, our cumulative safety records don't suggest that this is needed or even desired. Viva le difference!
If you do not subscribe to that concept, then (at least in my view) then you fail the critical test of "would I permit this instructor to teach my loved ones to dive?"
My questions are along the lines of: "Does the knowledge and skill to use a snorkel, or conduct an CESA, or use a compass, or understand both tables and computers, etc., add or subtract from diver training as a zero-defect undertaking under all circumstances?"
For example: if someone is only going to cave dive, or is never going to be more than twenty feet from waist deep water, a snorkel is an irrelevancy, but if they are going to dive in any circumstances in which a long surface swim, or long wait on the surface, might be required, then competence with a snorkel is a good tool to have in the kit ... not the only tool, but a good one. The same holds true for a litany of skills and topics that have been, and continue to be, removed from diver training programs for what appear, at least to me, to be nothing more than making courses, "more marketable," all part of the continuing race to the bottom, so to speak.
Though effective, and demonstrable, consensual standards are, IMHO, preferable, "your" collective cumulative safety record does suggest that some sort of governing body, that is more interested in safety than it is in sales, is "needed and even desired." One accident is way too many accidents, especially to the family and friends of the victim.
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