Boating Safety Awareness Is Paying Off Says Lake Water Safety Council

All those P-S-A’s and awareness campaign announcements you’ve heard over recent years preaching safety on the water appear to be paying off.

Captain Bob May, from KRMS and host of the “No Wake Zone Show,” says the nationwide stats are encouraging.

“The water safety council, the coast guard, the coast guard auxiliary, the water patrol, the captain’s association….all those organizations have helped us to get some new statistics from the coast guard, which shows there is a decrease in fatalities and incidents.”

Fatalities are reported as down by 11.3-percent with accidents and injuries down about 5-percent.

Another telling sign, according to May, is that drownings account for about 75-percent of deaths on the water with 87-percent of those victims not wearing life jackets at the time.

Overall…operator inattention, improper lookout, operator inexperience, speed and mechanical failure are blamed as the top contributory causes of bad things happening on the waterways.