Increasing Personal Flotation Device (PFD) Wear Rates
Increasing Personal Flotation Device (PFD) Wear Rates
Executive Summary
Each year about 200 Canadians die in boating related accidents and 90 percent of the people who drowned in recreational boating accidents were not wearing a lifejacket or Personal Flotation Device (“PFD”). In Canada it is not mandatory to wear a PFD while boating, although it is required to have a PFD or a lifejacket of the appropriate size on board for each person. An observational study recording the number of people who wore a PFD while on the water concluded that only approximately 20% of boaters wore a PFD.
The Office of Boating Safety (the “OBS”) is tasked with making recreational boating safer by initiating marketing programs to increase PFD wear rates, resulting in fewer deaths, accidents and expensive search and rescue missions.
The following different alternatives to increase PFD wear rates were explored:
· Develop, and share with all other groups in the boating community, set of communication tools and delivery methods for use in social marketing/education campaigns with specific campaigns for the different target groups – young children, teens and adults and males and females/families.
· Implement mandatory boater education programs/competency testing
· Work with PFD manufacturers to make the public aware of the changes to PFD designs and standards
· Determine if lowering the buoyancy standards to create more comfortable PFD’s can be done without a negative impact on boater safety.
· Introduce mandatory wear legislation for PFD’s.
· Steering Committee to monitor closely and ...