Would Government Regulation of Diving Be So Bad?

[diverbrian]

I happen to agree with Gedunk on this. I used to work with Uncle Samuel once upon a while ago.

They are too large to do anything with any level of efficiency and I dare say, that it is best if things are kept that way. Remember, there is a word for efficient government. It is called dictatorship.

I know that government certifications can be a pain for some and pass many incompetent people who happen to take the same basic test every other year or so (see the joke of a written driver's license test in my home state for an example). For that matter, look at the "official write-ups" on the Doria incidents in 1998-1999. The guy doing the investigating was basically a Caribbean diver trying very hard to apply that experience to diving on a wreck 240 ft. down. This is likely the type of person that we would have coming up with conclusions about what rec. instructors should be teaching. I don't see this as a good thing.

While we will always have our accidents/incidents, so will drivers, skiers, rock climbers, motorcyclists, kids on bicycles, ..... etc.

 

[Don Burke]

there are some minimal safety standards in place (for tanks),
otherwise, gubmen is pretty much out of diving at the
moment

Even those just relate to tanks that are to be transported. If the tanks are sitting at resort for beach diving, it is between the owner and the insurance company.

 

[dweeb]

Wouldn't divers be safer if someone WITHOUT A PROFIT MOTIVE was in charge of evaluating diver skills prior to handing them a c-card?

Money is not the ultimate source of corruption, power is.
If I have 3 dollars, it represents the power to get the people at McDonald's to give me a Big Mac. Money is nothing more than a marker for the power to get goods and services from others.

Government is no less subject conflicts of interest - it just skips the little green pieces of paper and mainlines the real drug, power, in its pure form. Numerous special interest groups would exert influence, seeking to impose their judgment not just on what skills are valued, but on motivations for diving as well.

Driving an automobile is regulated in the manner you raise for discussion, and look at the people on our roads. Our licensing requirements are a joke, and our roads are bathed in blood. The government regulates our public utilities, and last summer half the nation was plunged into darkness.

We've seen numerous threads here about the onerous nature of govt. SCUBA regulation in other countries as well. PADI has been implicated in lobbying efforts abroad that sought to impose a requirement for paid supervision for all divers.

Personally, I'd like one of two things - either raise the bar for certification to where the credentials actually mean what they purport to mean, or eliminate the entire certification process altogether, and make diving open access, like skiing, with training available for those smart enough to want it, and let Darwin go to work.

 

[H2Andy]

what is a personal attack? it is an argument made against the merits of the PERSON
against whom you are arguing and not the merits of that person's ARGUMENT.

this is also known as an ad hominem fallacy:

Description of Ad Hominem

Translated from Latin to English, "Ad Hominem" means "against the man" or "against the person."

An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting).

This type of "argument" has the following form:

1. Person A makes claim X.
2. Person B makes an attack on person A.
3. Therefore A's claim is false.

The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made).

Please refrain from making personal attacks (ad hominem arguments) in this thread. thanks.

 

[dweeb]

As a person that has take quite a few FAA, FCC, and other government tests, I have to say that they are pretty weak. The people that pass the usual 70% margin do not necessarily know how to perform the actions they are now certified to do. It's experience that makes the difference

I feel so much better flying now.

 

[dweeb]

Some people want more divers, others want fewer, so as to not have to share diving areas with crowds. Every aspect of scuba would be affected by such mutually exclusive competing ideologies.

Are divers the result of random evolution, or intelligent design?

 

[Uncle Pug]

The feds are about to make all of us who own boats much safer. If they can make us safe and secure above water should we not relinquish the control of our underwater lives to them as well. They are the government... and the are here to help.

 

[damsel]

The primary problem I see in a government-based standards system is one that's already been raised, but not really addressed, in this thread: diving is an international sport. I don't see how any sort of globally-reaching government-regulated diving certification could be implimented, and even if it could, I don't think many governments would be interested. But let's say the US (for example, since that's my birth country, and easiest for me to address for hypotheticals) did decide to go ahead and implement regulation. Would all currently certified divers have to go through certification all over again? Would all instructors - and would those instructors have to pay for the cost of it themselves? Would gubmint-issue C-cards be good for life, or require retesting and re-issue every few years?

yes... certainly the cost of training will go up, as those costs will inevitably be trickled down to the consumer. however, you would be paying for "better trained" instructors and, as it is, training costs are ridiculously low, so...

definetely a concern, but i doubt it would put diving out of
the range of people who today seek dive training.

The cost to dive students would go up, but so would the cost to diveshops, to resorts, to instructors themselves... that would be a real concern to many, I believe, perhaps even pricing them out of the business. I wouldn't be so opposed to this if I honestly felt we'd see better-trained divers coming out of the process, but I don't. I think we'd see experienced instructors either getting out of the business entirely or setting up shop in other countries, leaving dive instruction in this country in the hands of brand-spanking-new, untested, inexperienced instructors produced by the new federal training system.
Which leads me to another question: What happens to those who do their checkout dives on referral? The instructor who signs off the final dive is the certifying instructor, but if the diver's elected to do their checkouts in nice tropical waters, with an instructor in another country who isn't licensed by the US, is that diver fully certified? What of the diver who does the whole course on vacation outside the States? What about divers who travel to this country on dive vacations, bearing certs from other organisations?

I understand wanting to improve dive safety, but as a poly-sci major whose mother's had a 30+ year career with Our Friend The Federal Government, I honestly believe that government intervention is not the way to go. Instructors must take the initiative, making sure every student they certify is safe, comfortable and knowledgeable.

 

[dweeb]

Government regulation of scuba diving would be based on the premise of protecting you from yourself. ie. sealtbelt laws, helmet laws, etc...

Helmet and seatbelt laws are a direct attack on natural selection.

 

[dweeb]

Here is something else to ponder.

How much better would it be if there were no standards for these people to meet?

It might be much better. Often no standard is better than a meaningless standard. Given the high degree of learned helplessness in our society, a lot of people would probably be afraid to drive at all were it not for the government giving them a card that tells them, in conflict with any empirical observation, that they are competent.

I've seen many people who are accidents waiting to happen, both underwater and on the road, who complacently deny that they have any more to learn because they have a credential.