Imagine turning loose a 14-year-old on a motorcycle without brakes that zooms up to 70 mph on a road without traffic signals or a speed limit and expecting a good outcome.
Or how about putting someone who is a senior citizen on that same motorcycle in heavy traffic without any experience, training or even a license?
That’s what happens every day on Florida waterways, only they’re operating personal watercraft (PWC), more commonly known by their brand names Jet Skis, Wave Runners and Sea Doos–all too often with wild abandon, alcohol-impaired brains and deadly consequences. Over the past two years people are dying on personal watercraft at twice the rate of the two previous years combined.
Tuesday’s Fourth of July holiday marked the latest Florida fatality of a PWC operator when a 65-year-old man died in a crash on the Little Manatee River in Hillsborough County. The circumstances of that fatal PWC accident are still under investigation by the FWC.
There were 11 personal watercraft deaths last year statewide, including a highly-publicized one involving in Pinellas County last summer that killed Craig Butz, the principal of Pepin Academies and critically injured his daughter.
Butz’ blood alcohol was twice the legal limit at the time of that tragedy. The boat he crashed into was operated by attorney Tom Carey, former state president of MADD. Carey had not been drinking and was not at fault in that crash.
Experienced boaters sometimes refer to PWC operators and their vessels as “mosquitoes” because of their tendency to suddenly crisscross crowded waterways and recklessly jump the wakes of powerboats to become momentarily airborne for an added rush of adrenalin.
PWCs have no brakes, only raw speed and in the wrong hands they are deadly missiles that are killing an increasing number of people on Florida waterways according to data put together by the FWC.
Florida lawmakers have added some rules in recent years that begin to enhance boating safety when it comes to personal watercraft. Flotation vests are required and so are engine-cutoff switches attached to your wrist and there is no legal operation after dark. You can’t rent a PWC unless you are 18 or older, and some training is required for anyone born after Jan. 1, 1988 in order to earn a “boater education ID card.”
Of course, a boater education card in your wallet does not guarantee safe practices, and FWC data indicates most personal watercraft operators have no boater education anyway.
Last year in Pinellas there were 17 accidents, one death and 12 injuries. In Hillsborough, two people died in and eight were injured in 10 PWC accidents.
In 2018, four PWC operators have died so far, three of them in Hillsborough County and summer fun on Florida waters, reckless or otherwise, is in prime season.
