It is useful to know how to stay safe in the water, and to understand how most accidents happened. Most of the accidents you can avoid with care, plan, and knowledge. In the article below you can read about the top 5 causes of boating accidents.
1. Operator Inexperience
Source:personal-injury-miami.com
If you want to be a skipper you do not need an operating license, which leads us to inexperienced boat drivers and the potential accident. Operators of the boats need to get knowledge of boating and navigation because they need to be prepared for hard emergency situations. There are a lot of boating courses where you can get specific boat skills to handle all situations on the water. Do you drive your car without a license? No. So this is a good advice for all the people out there who are going to buy or rent a boat in the future.
2. Operator Inattention
When you driving a boat your attention must be direct to the water because boats do not have brakes, and when you must react quick and careful water and tides can be unpredictable and cause the accident. The boat drivers must always monitor their boats, water, nature around and weather that day.
3. Excessive Speed
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You always need to know what is your safe speed because you need to react on time. Like the road, even the waterways have their speed limits and you need to pay attention. If you respect speed limits you will avoid collisions with other boats. If you want to drive on a safe speed you need to know the type of the water and the state of the tide.
4. Ignoring the Weather
Before you leave the port, you must check weather conditions. You must have fresh news about the weather that day or night.Poor visibility, cloud patterns, changes in wind direction and force are the main weather conditions that can cause a serious accident. So the conclusion is; always keep an eye on the weather. Clear conditions when you start off do not mean that the whole day will be like that, and never underestimate storms at the open water.
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5. Hazardous Waters
When you drive through the hazardous water you must be prepared because they are predictable and you can learn everything about that. Rapid tidal flows or sudden changes in the current waters often cause boat accidents. You need to be prepared for this kind of scenarios.
For your own good, you can take some kind of boating courses and refresh your previous knowledge and learn some new skills because every good skipper is educated one.