Bloglines - NEW COAST GUARD REPORT SHOWS MOST BOATERS WHO DROWN, NOT WEARING LIFEJACKETS

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U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary (USCGAUX) Boating Safety/Maritime Domain Awareness The U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary (USCGAUX) Boating Safety BLOG discusses recreational boating safety issues that can help save lives and prevent boating accidents. This blog also promotes maritime domain awareness (MDA) in an effort to help keep America safe.

NEW COAST GUARD REPORT SHOWS MOST BOATERS WHO DROWN, NOT WEARING LIFEJACKETS By Ed Sweeney WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 – U.S. Coast Guard statistics released today indicate 86 percent of all boaters who drowned in 2003 were not wearing life jackets. In addition, alcohol involvement was a contributing factor in approximately one third of all reported recreational boating fatalities. More than 95 percent of boat owners report having enough life jackets onboard for all their passengers, however 66 percent of them do not wear their lifejackets every time they go out, according to a Coast Guard study conducted in 2001 and 2002 involving more than 25,000 recreational boaters. The statistics also show the leading contributing factors in boating accidents are operator inattention, carelessness/reckless operation, operator inexperience, and excessive speed. Eighty percent of those who died were onboard boats whose operators had not received boating safety instruction. The new statistics are posted on the Coast Guard’s Office of Boating Safety website and include statistics broken down by state.