Why ‘everyone is responsible for their own risk-based decisions’ isn’t the right approach to take
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GJC
Contributor
They recommend something that they sell but you can get clear spray lacquer at hobby supply stores or Home Depot.
Bob DBF
Contributor
Since medical issues are a large number of deaths, any yes on the medical questionare should disqualify one from diving. A questionare before going out with a dive op or getting a fill would be a quick way to get started and go a long ways in preventing deaths. No doctors release.
Probably be more effective than a check list.
Bob
I find this thread fascinating, but don't entirely buy the distinction between "trust me" dives vs. personal responsibility. To my way of thinking, ALL diving requires a significant amount of "trust me", while the personal responsibility part is mostly about deciding who and when you should trust.
As a beginner, I currently feel comfortable diving to ~40 feet in calm areas of Puget Sound. I do not yet believe I am equipped to dive safely in strong current, or to 100+ feet. Does choosing and sticking to these limits make me personally responsible? Kinda… but my definition of what these limits are comes entirely from trusting others...
Choosing the right threshold between safe and unsafe behaviors is all about risk management. But it is impossible to accurately judge risks based only on personal experience, for many reasons:
Taking this another step, I have also not spent the time to dig through first hand data about diving practices and accident rates, collate trends, and derive my own conclusions from first principles. Instead, I trust in the results of experts who have already done that for me.
Even another step, I am not sufficiently well informed to judge for myself which experts are wise and insightful vs. loud mouthed idiots. Instead, I trust in a combination of authority and collective wisdom. I can sanity check this result by comparing multiple sources (luckily, my instructor and training handbook pretty much agreed about everything, as did scubaboard when I later discovered it) - but fundamentally I am still just trusting what others have told me.
I don't see this as a bad thing - but every dive I've made so far has relied on trust far more than personal experience. Is following the words of people who are not actually diving with me fundamentally that different to following a divemaster in person? I wonder how much of personal responsibility really just comes down to choosing wisely about who to trust. And for a beginner, choosing wisely gets difficult in the seemingly all too common case where an instructor doesn't follow guidelines, etc etc.
As a beginner, I currently feel comfortable diving to ~40 feet in calm areas of Puget Sound. I do not yet believe I am equipped to dive safely in strong current, or to 100+ feet. Does choosing and sticking to these limits make me personally responsible? Kinda… but my definition of what these limits are comes entirely from trusting others...
Choosing the right threshold between safe and unsafe behaviors is all about risk management. But it is impossible to accurately judge risks based only on personal experience, for many reasons:
- This is a highly noisy signal, which means a large data set is necessary for precise measurement
- At least when diving safely, the accident rate is extremely low, which further increases the amount of data necessary to correlate specific behaviors with increased or decreased risk
- Individuals prefer not to have to die multiple times in order to determine which behaviors are unsafe
- Individuals judging risk based on personal experience are massively vulnerable to rounding error of the form "I did this twice already and was fine, so it must be safe..."
Taking this another step, I have also not spent the time to dig through first hand data about diving practices and accident rates, collate trends, and derive my own conclusions from first principles. Instead, I trust in the results of experts who have already done that for me.
Even another step, I am not sufficiently well informed to judge for myself which experts are wise and insightful vs. loud mouthed idiots. Instead, I trust in a combination of authority and collective wisdom. I can sanity check this result by comparing multiple sources (luckily, my instructor and training handbook pretty much agreed about everything, as did scubaboard when I later discovered it) - but fundamentally I am still just trusting what others have told me.
I don't see this as a bad thing - but every dive I've made so far has relied on trust far more than personal experience. Is following the words of people who are not actually diving with me fundamentally that different to following a divemaster in person? I wonder how much of personal responsibility really just comes down to choosing wisely about who to trust. And for a beginner, choosing wisely gets difficult in the seemingly all too common case where an instructor doesn't follow guidelines, etc etc.
GJC
Contributor
That would definitely save a lot of lives. But also probably take away the fun of diving from a lot of people unnecessarily. I think a better plan would be to require MD clearance for boat dives and air fills for anyone that checked a yes box. I think I recently read somewhere that everyone has to bring a medical clearance form from an MD with them to dive in Spain.
The only thing Merry and I ever forget is our weightbelts. She P-touched our backplates so we would see the reminder before getting into our harness. We have each forgotten despite the reminder.
That was a problem I had early on. It is funny how some instructors in my area avoid SB like the plague and don't want students go there. But then I see how they teach and now I understand.
I try to instill in my students to question everything I tell them, to require explanations of why things are done in certain ways, and to continuously evaluate it. And if they feel uneasy about something to say so. Same as if they later find something I have said/taught that is wrong or could be taught better.
But yeah, I followed some really bad advice. I learned the hard way that people "teaching for decades" and have "certified thousands of students" doesn't mean a thing. But as a new diver, I was impressed by such statements.
Eric Sedletzky
Contributor
If you are a friend giving a new divers pointers, then no not really. You are not an instructor teaching in a class situation with a contract, you are a friend leading a diver into new territory without them having so called “proffesional” instruction. If they choose to follow you into territory that is beyond their training then it’s their problem. Theoretically, they should stay within their training, and if they want to go beyond their training then they should get the proper training for the type of diving they wish to do.
What you’re talking about is a trust me dive. It’s up to the new diver to have sense enough to know not to do it.
1. ScubaBoard threads are often feature the advice to stop paying for classes and just start diving with a more experienced Mentor who can guide you as you progress. Of course, how you are to be able to tell a good Mentor from a fool who talks a good game is not explained.
2. In my recent conversations with PADI that led to revisions in the language for the wreck diving class, I was reminded that they recommend that divers stay within the limits of their training and experience. The "and experience" part includes the diving you do outside of training, with or without a trusted mentor.
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