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>Tell us who dear old grandma is going to impinge upon? To whom is >she going to cause detriment when she goes skiing, skydiving >or dives on the Doria? It's interesting, but the "We know what's good for you" bleeding heart fascists try to justify making lots more rules, the usual rationale is that the government will step in and make REALLY restrictive law (though god knows what could be more restrictive that the sort of stuff Dan has been hinting at) if we don't. Yet historically this is not the case - our govt here in the US only steps in when people are likely to hurt others in addition to themselves, or when the cost passed on to the public becomes excessive. When the consituency is large enough (as with guns and tobacco) not even these seem to count. A good example is aviation, which is very rigidly regulated (though where the pilot once licensed is given enormous leeway in making decisions). Since the danger to the public from crashes (as passengers) or from falling aircraft is substantial, the gov regulates it. Ultralights, on the other hand, which carry no risk to passengers (can't carry them) and little risk to bystanders (small and light, easy to dodge) are not regulated at all, despite a death toll compared to which TDI look like the girl scouts. Or take motorcycle helmet laws. When these are debated by our lawmakers, the main concern is always the high cost of head injuries to the public. The problem from the govt's point of view is not that motorcyclists are killing themselves (like ultralightists) when they crash, but that they aren't - that they tend to turn themselves into veggies, and then live long, expensive, unproductive lives as public wards. No one is particularly worried about the safety of the motorcylists, only their impact on the public wallet. So as divers, are best defense against onerous govt. regulation is not dumb self serving rules from the industry, but to continue as we are doing, and either kill ourselves dead when we screw up, or do only relatively inexpensive harm. This whole thread, BTW, is not only tedious, but stupid, since one never knows what the liability really is until the courts are finished. This dive boat captain who tries to guard himself against liability by refusing to let a certified diver dive might find himself sued for the cost of the divers trip, including airfare and damages, and maybe even assault or false arrest if he was particularly inept at stopping them. If he sucessfully defended himself against those charges, by proving he was qualified to second-guess the certifying agency, and had the authority and responsibility to act, he might find himself facing suits from past and future clients when they were injured, for NOT stopping them, now that he'd shown it was his duty to do so. And on, and on, and on. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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