http://kingsparknotebook.com/three-kayakers-rescued-from-long-island-sound/

I can’t find the article but 3 others were rescued 2 miles in the Atlantic between the two forks of Long Islands east end. They were fined for not wearing PDF’s

@PaddleDog52 said:
They were fined for not wearing PDF’s

Is it the law to actually wear them, or just have them aboard? Here in Ontario, Canada you just need to have one per person but you can be sitting on it or using it as a back rest. Hell, you could even have it stuffed in a hatch and you’re legal. Now THAT is stupid.

“Is it the law to actually wear them…” Depends upon the state laws. They are all a little different.

Sorry I made a mistake they were fined for not having them in NY.

If a state can mandate that you must wear a life jacket while boating, then why not while you’re swimming, or on an air mattress, or inner tube? At some point, don’t people have to make decisions for themselves and government needs to leave people to their own devises?
There is a difference between scratching your butt and tearing a hole in it, or so I was told by a man of wisdom.

@magooch said:
If a state can mandate that you must wear a life jacket while boating, then why not while you’re swimming, or on an air mattress, or inner tube? At some point, don’t people have to make decisions for themselves and government needs to leave people to their own devises?

1. Don’t give 'em any ideas.
2. You know government. There was an accident. Somebody lobbied for more precautions on certain activities and made enough noise, gathered enough voters, and they made a law. Likely the parents of dead child.

Says the one guy jumped out of his kayak and tried to swim to shore. So let me get this straight the one guy thought he could swim faster than paddle a kayak. Ok he gets Darwin award of the three.

@magooch said:
If a state can mandate that you must wear a life jacket while boating, then why not while you’re swimming, or on an air mattress, or inner tube? At some point, don’t people have to make decisions for themselves and government needs to leave people to their own devises?

Sure, let them choose. But where I take issue is the cost of resources to rescue and care for these people. Many people just aren’t bright enough to make good decisions. Take elections, for example…

It’s like wearing a seat belt. Need I list all the regs we live under? So a mass of rescue personal are not looking for a body that sunk with no preserver. Every year OSHA and industry like scaffold association make a list of all the accidents that happened then make better regs to prevent deaths.

The state of SC did away with the law that required wearing a helmet when riding a motorcycle. Now they put up signs to look out for folks on motorcycles with save a life on them. Now I am not against drivers being more aware of motorcycles, but if you ride one without a helmet then you are not accepting responsibility for when things do go wrong. If I was an insurance company I would require it or you would pay for your head injures not the insurance. I would do the same for boat liability passengers in a boating accident that aren’t wearing a PFD. They wouldn’t be covered.

@castoff said:
The state of SC did away with the law that required wearing a helmet when riding a motorcycle. Now they put up signs to look out for folks on motorcycles with save a life on them. Now I am not against drivers being more aware of motorcycles, but if you ride one without a helmet then you are not accepting responsibility for when things do go wrong. If I was an insurance company I would require it or you would pay for your head injures not the insurance. I would do the same for boat liability passengers in a boating accident that aren’t wearing a PFD. They wouldn’t be covered.

Ditto for Michigan. The helmetless cyclists wind up dead in an accident. Such deaths have increased 26% since the helmet law was repealed. Sort of like not wearing a life jacket…speaking of which, three in a small dinghy were saved today by other boaters. They went out without carrying PFDs or checking the weather. Storm blew in over Lake Michigan and plop, over went the vessel tossing all three in the water. They were lucky this time.

@castoff said:
The state of SC did away with the law that required wearing a helmet when riding a motorcycle. Now they put up signs to look out for folks on motorcycles with save a life on them. Now I am not against drivers being more aware of motorcycles, but if you ride one without a helmet then you are not accepting responsibility for when things do go wrong. If I was an insurance company I would require it or you would pay for your head injures not the insurance. I would do the same for boat liability passengers in a boating accident that aren’t wearing a PFD. They wouldn’t be covered.

well I have ridden motorcycles for decades. I have also tapped my head on overhead objects and the pain! Can’t imagine my head hitting anything even at 20 mph or even 5. Can’t walk on water and have no gills either so I wear a PFD.

@Rookie said:

@castoff said:
The state of SC did away with the law that required wearing a helmet when riding a motorcycle. Now they put up signs to look out for folks on motorcycles with save a life on them. Now I am not against drivers being more aware of motorcycles, but if you ride one without a helmet then you are not accepting responsibility for when things do go wrong. If I was an insurance company I would require it or you would pay for your head injures not the insurance. I would do the same for boat liability passengers in a boating accident that aren’t wearing a PFD. They wouldn’t be covered.

Ditto for Michigan. The helmetless cyclists wind up dead in an accident.

But they sure look cool, though!

@castoff said:
If I was an insurance company I would require it or you would pay for your head injures not the insurance.

This is the fallacy of our health care system - people don’t pay for their healthcare whether they are insured or not. If someone shows up at the hospital with the head injury, they are going to get care. If they have insurance, insurance will pay. If they don’t have insurance, the rest of us will pay - as consumers of healthcare, as taxpayers and as insureds in insurance plans. I’d rather the insurance pays. The whole idea that someone should be able to opt out of buying heath insurance, or that insurance companies should be able to limit coverage is ridiculous. That just shifts the cost to me.

Sorry to diverge to the healthcare debate, but I think that everyone should have to pay their own way, which means purchasing health insurance. I also think that the government has a role in making it affordable. Purchasing healthcare is not like buying a wigit - you can’t rely on market forces alone (in spite of Republican claims to the contrary).

@eckilson said:

@castoff said:
If I was an insurance company I would require it or you would pay for your head injures not the insurance.

This is the fallacy of our health care system

I happen to agree with you about health care. I did not mean this to go political my apology. In fact I perceive regulations as protections for individuals and society as a whole. However, I do not consider all regulations as well thought out. Many have unforeseen consequences.
The point I was trying to make is both as individuals and a society we should be responsible for our actions. I think ignorance of the potential danger of water and how temperature, and weather changes can radically increase the hazard, is often responsible for unnecessary deaths. I see it as a responsibility of us as individuals and society to try and mitigate this ignorance.
I used the helmet law or lack thereof as an example. The use of insurance liability as a alternative in the case of a lack of rational regulation (law) was just to point out the need for some form of responsibility.
What irks me about the lack of a helmet law are the signs that want to sift the responsibility on drives of cars. Not that drivers don’t have a duty to be aware of bikes on the road, but it behooves both parties to take precautions.

Just to be clear, I always wear my pfd when I’m paddling and I always wear my helmet when I’m riding (motorcycles and bikes), but lawmakers don’t all seem to have common sense on some of these issues. Back when seatbelts were first being installed on everything, they tried to make seatbelts mandatory on motorcycles in my state–while exempting school buses. I think school buses are still exempt.

It sounds like some here think that wearing a pfd should be mandatory on all water craft. So how big would the boat/ship have to be before that rule would be void?

It really gets complicated and conflated when you try to filter everything through the healthcare prism. And then there is the political reference–really?

Politics don’t belong here. As far as helmet laws go. Hey less helmets more organ donation so see there is a bright side. I cant ever see mandated PFD’s for all boats. Iam talking power boats. It would never pass. In the article the OP started I thought it said they all had PFD’s on. That makes it easier to recover the bodies.

@magooch said:
Just to be clear, I always wear my pfd when I’m paddling and I always wear my helmet when I’m riding (motorcycles and bikes), but lawmakers don’t all seem to have common sense on some of these issues. Back when seatbelts were first being installed on everything, they tried to make seatbelts mandatory on motorcycles in my state–while exempting school buses. I think school buses are still exempt.

It sounds like some here think that wearing a pfd should be mandatory on all water craft. So how big would the boat/ship have to be before that rule would be void?

It really gets complicated and conflated when you try to filter everything through the healthcare prism. And then there is the political reference–really?

here in NY after Nov 1st to May 1st you need a PFD in any water craft 21 feet or less. They look at the stats and where most drownings occur. No law is perfect but here on Long Island there seems to be more people getting killed or rescued in kayaks and paddle boards than power boats. Just my guess from the news but I think it is true. Same with school buses they say accident rates are are low so they haven’t mandated them. I think they should with kids having their entire life ahead of them.

You can’t legislate common sense. Example: thousands of people die yearly in vehicle accidents because they refuse to wear seat belts, yet seat belt laws have been around for decades. Some people just think that they are “bulletproof”, no matter what statistics prove.