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In reply to the following post: > If divers on and off the net keep on flaming each other instead of keeping > diving in order and watching out for the authoritarian government types that > always lurk in the bushes waiting for something to jump on to control it, > In the 1970's I read that an attempt by the USA state of California to > impose a rather tight scuba diver's licence law (the excuse was sport diving > casualties, the likely cause was authoritarianism for its own sake) was > stopped by massive public protest after widespread publicity just in time by > sport diving monthly periodicals (that was long before the internet > appeared). > That scare brought together just in time several USA main sport diving > organizations that previously argued among themselves about this and that. Marc wrote: > Perhaps this is an admission that the current american system of many > agencies competing for the diving public's cash is a failure, in the sense > that it cannot ensure that divers will dive safely... > So, this could mean that the European system of federated diving clubs > that are strictly non-profit is doing a better job of training divers... It > seems that this kind of "regulation" is the right thing. But it's too bad > that the American system is being slowly exported to the rest of the world. Perhaps this is not an admission of any failure by the American agencies, but rather the trend toward bureaucracy, eg. when politicians see a chance to grab money and increase the size of their fiefdom, they go for it. You may be interested to know that regulation of diving, and/or a "diving tax," is currently being bandied about by at least one of the States. As far as the "...European system ... doing a better job of training divers..." I don't how you mean this. Does this mean that you think Europeans are better divers? Or that Europeans have a lower accident and fatality rate that Americans? NOTE: this will open a **huge** can of worms, since we can argue 'till we're blue in the face about whether European or American divers are "better." I think there are excellent divers to be found no matter where one goes, and we can all learn something from one another, if we're willing. As far as accidents and fatalities are concerned: there are accidents and fatalities among divers all over the world, at all levels of training, in all environments and with all types of equipment being worn. The nature of the human being, and our sport, means that there will always be accidents and fatalities in diving, whether pursued for recreational/sport, commercial or military purposes. Perhaps all agencies should tell the prospective new diver that diving entails "going into an alien environment with life support equipment on"? Then at least everyone would be going into this thing with their eyes open.... (Not that this would change the accident/fatality numbers by a significant margin.) Bernie
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