Safety comes from education

The Metropolitan King County Council’s recent law requiring life jackets for swimmers, boaters and floaters is intended to improve water safety as record snowmelt will stretch local rivers [“A vested interest in saving lives,” Opinion, June 25]. The ordinance’s temporary nature is appropriate because it keeps attention on the effective water-safety solution — using Washington’s Boater Education Program to teach the importance life jackets and to improve overall boating safety.

In fact, we have worked closely with Washington State Parks to mandate that vessel operators receive the boating education they need to prevent accidents.

While any sport carries some risk, boating is one of the safest. Last year, boating fatalities were less than one-thousandth of 1 percent of the 75 million boaters who took to the water.

We continue to support current laws that require children 12 and younger on boats less than 19 feet to wear life jackets at all times. However, U.S. Coast Guard statistics show that boat operators involved in more than 75 percent of boating fatalities did not have any formal boating education.

The three largest causes of boating accidents are caused not by lack of life jacket wear, but by inattention, inexperience, improper lookouts, alcohol and failure to exercise rules of the water. Education gives boaters the knowledge they need to make safe decisions not only about when they should wear a life jacket, but also on safe boating practices overall.

In boating, as in many things in life, a law can never replace sound judgment.

— George Harris, president and CEO of Northwest Marine Trade Association, Seattle

— Thomas J. Dammrich, president of National Marine Manufacturers Association, Chicago