Fatality after boat/PWC collision off Menai Bridge

[penberth3]

This.

Without making any comment about the case at hand, if you’re negligent enough not to wear a kill cord you should be hammered, its not just the punishment of the negligent, family or not, it’s the deterrent that is important here.

How could anyone be "hammered" if it isn't criminal offence?

 

[Seastoke]

I can’t see any report that says a female was on the jet ski.

Todays reports name the deceased as a 52 year old woman from Stoke who was on the rib it collided with. No details of how it happened.

________________________

Sorry the news was wrong , i wished she had survived

 

[PalmaTarga]

How could anyone be "hammered" if it isn't criminal offence?

death by dangerous driving?

 

[penberth3]

death by dangerous driving?

We're talking about on the water, not on the road. The suggestion was to "hammer" anyone who didn't use a kill cord, death wasn't mentioned.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Without making any comment about the case at hand, if you’re negligent enough not to wear a kill cord you should be hammered, its not just the punishment of the negligent, family or not, it’s the deterrent that is important here.

Some years ago the teenage son of friends of ours took me and my crew out to their boat in an inflatable tender with a smallish (5hp?) outboard. He got quite offended when I said that we would not go with him unless the kill cord was clipped to him and not to the handle of the outboard.

 

[JumbleDuck]

How could anyone be "hammered" if it isn't criminal offence?

Manslaughter, in the case I linked to.

 

[penberth3]

Some years ago the teenage son of friends of ours took me and my crew out to their boat in an inflatable tender with a smallish (5hp?) outboard. He got quite offended when I said that we would not go with him unless the kill cord was clipped to him and not to the handle of the outboard.

Why hadn't your friends trained him properly?

 

[dom]

Some years ago the teenage son of friends of ours took me and my crew out to their boat in an inflatable tender with a smallish (5hp?) outboard. He got quite offended when I said that we would not go with him unless the kill cord was clipped to him and not to the handle of the outboard.

Hopefully his sense of being offended changed to one of remorse when his dad got hold of him !!

 

[penberth3]

Manslaughter, in the case I linked to.

Agreed, because there was a death.

Edit to add. In your example the person responsible was killed, so couldn't be charged anyway.

 

[I’m no expert]

Going back the the OP and reading between the lines of what I know it’s possible that the person on the ski was another family member, if that’s the case then it’s tragic for them.

 

[SimonFa]

How could anyone be "hammered" if it isn't criminal offence?

For clarity, where someone has been injured or killed. IANAL but I’d like to think there’s a case of endangering life or something similar.

perhaps the RYA could be useful and campaign for a law that kill cords have to be worn where fitted? I don’t like strict liability laws but as we have them this should be one.

Some years ago the teenage son of friends of ours took me and my crew out to their boat in an inflatable tender with a smallish (5hp?) outboard. He got quite offended when I said that we would not go with him unless the kill cord was clipped to him and not to the handle of the outboard.

I‘m a safety boat volunteer at WPNSA and I’ve seen parents not wearing them when watching their kids racing. One guy complained bitterly when I asked him to wear his, claiming he took it off every time he stopped the boat and put it straight back on when he started to move (he didn’t, we’d watched from afar).

 

[Sandy]

How could anyone be "hammered" if it isn't criminal offence?

Manslaughter is.

 

[penberth3]

Manslaughter is.

Already discussed if you check the last few posts. I was responding to a suggestion that people should be legally "hammered" for not wearing a kill cord.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Why hadn't your friends trained him properly?

Good question. I suspect teenage bravado played a part.

Hopefully his sense of being offended changed to one of remorse when his dad got hold of him !!

One would like to think so.

Edit to add. In your example the person responsible was killed, so couldn't be charged anyway.

<Husband> ... and <daughter>, eight, died after the family of six were thrown from their boat, which then circled out of control at high speed and hit them.​

His wife <wife> had been at the helm prior to the accident in Padstow, Cornwall, on May 5 last year.​

But she had not been wearing the boat’s kill cord, which is designed to cut the power in an emergency.​

At an inquest into the deaths of her husband and daughter today, she said she had been wrong not to do so.​

 

[Stemar]

How could anyone be "hammered" if it isn't criminal offence?

Not sure what the marine equivalent is, but driving without due care and attention/reasonable consideration covers a multitude of otherwise undefined motoring sins. If you need a law, and I'm not sure it's such a bad idea, harbour regulations saying that, where fitted, kill cords must work and be used on all vessels & PWCs capable of more than 10 knots would cover most areas.

It doesn't seem that it would have helped that poor sod from Langstone the other day, though.

My original assumption that the victim was a PWC driver who ran into something hard was wrong. All the more sympathy for the victim and her family as she appears to have been entirely innocent. I do hope that if the PWC was engaging in the all too common high speed twattery, that he gets a manslaughter charge thrown at him.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Not sure what the marine equivalent is, but driving without due care and attention/reasonable consideration covers a multitude of otherwise undefined motoring sins. If you need a law, and I'm not sure it's such a bad idea, harbour regulations saying that, where fitted, kill cords must work and be used on all vessels & PWCs capable of more than 10 knots would cover most areas.

It doesn't seem that it would have helped that poor sod from Langstone the other day, though.

My original assumption that the victim was a PWC driver who ran into something hard was wrong. All the more sympathy for the victim and her family as she appears to have been entirely innocent. I do hope that if the PWC was engaging in the all too common high speed twattery, that he gets a manslaughter charge thrown at him.

The marine equivalent of driving laws would be those which enact the IRPCS. Unfortunately, I understand that a court decided that a PWC wasn't a "vessel" for the purposes of that legislation. So basically, the only laws governing them are local bye-laws, which have limited powers and even more limited enforcement. Unless an incident such as this pushes the level of offence up to GBH, manslaughter or murder, as I understand it the law is pretty toothless.

 

[Black Sheep]

Unfortunately, I understand that a court decided that a PWC wasn't a "vessel" for the purposes of that legislation.

I vaguely recall that case. The defence claimed (and the judge agreed) that a PWC isn't a vessel, as it's not used for "navigation".

I seem to recall that only a short while later, Britain was circumnavigated by a PWC.

What I don't recall, is whether that judicial decision was at a high enough level to count as precedent, or whether it was ever reversed

 

[Mark-1]

The marine equivalent of driving laws would be those which enact the IRPCS. Unfortunately, I understand that a court decided that a PWC wasn't a "vessel" for the purposes of that legislation.

Famous case and I don't think your memory is 100pc correct:

"No, the problem was that the jet skier was charged under the wrong provision. There's another legal provision somewhere (can't lay my hands on it just now, but it exists) which makes it a criminal offence to cause injury/damage while breaking the colregs, but the prosecutor screwed up and brought a prosecution under the S. 59 of the Merchant Shipping Act instead, which only applies to "ships". "

Jet ski crash legal ruling

IRPCS still apply to Jetskis, as they do to everyone else. Also if a court ever had to decide again they would almost certainly conclude a Jetski *was* "involved in navigation" because Jetskis regularly cross the channel.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Famous case and I don't think your memory is 100pc correct:

"No, the problem was that the jet skier was charged under the wrong provision. There's another legal provision somewhere (can't lay my hands on it just now, but it exists) which makes it a criminal offence to cause injury/damage while breaking the colregs, but the prosecutor screwed up and brought a prosecution under the S. 59 of the Merchant Shipping Act instead, which only applies to "ships". "

Jet ski crash legal ruling

IRPCS still apply to Jetskis, as they do to everyone else. Also if a court ever had to decide again they would almost certainly conclude a Jetski *was* "involved in navigation" because Jetskis regularly cross the channel.

Thanks - my memory was second hand and shaky anyway!

 

[Stork_III]

I vaguely recall that case. The defence claimed (and the judge agreed) that a PWC isn't a vessel, as it's not used for "navigation".

I seem to recall that only a short while later, Britain was circumnavigated by a PWC.

What I don't recall, is whether that judicial decision was at a high enough level to count as precedent, or whether it was ever reversed

Goodwin case. Originally found guilty, sentence to 6 months in prison, overturned by the Appeal Court, appeal to HoL (highest Court at the time) refused, so still extant as a precedent ( actual precedent exist from 1992 case in the Admiralty Court). Powers exist in section 112 of the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003, allowing the Secretary Of State to “provide for a shipping provision to apply (with or without modification) in relation to specified things which are used, navigated or situated wholly or partly in or on water”.

It has never been used. About time it is.