longstreath.com: Why We Need Change In Diving Regulation! - longstreath.com

A very interesting pie indeed. I suspect that Incompetence might overlap many of the other causes of death.
Obviously the survey concentrates on fatalities and the workshop will undoubtedly promote a quick and effective incident reporting procedure so that lessons can be learned and similar incidents avoided in the future.
However there are the "near misses" which traditionally go unreported to save the blushes of both employers and employees. They would undoubtedly be more numerous than than the fatalities. If that situation continues the opportunity to learn from these incidents will be lost until there is a fatality or severe injury. This is a grey area that I feel the workshop should also deliberate upon!
In his book "Requiem for a Diver" Jackie Warner posts at the foot of his annual fatality chart that there were a plethora of incidents resulting in permanent damage to the diver which were never logged or reported.

Thank you for bring this to the forefront, I have signed both Petitions.

What surprise me is the entrenched opposition of the ADCI and IMCA members to safety upgrades! Their employers, members of the OGP, support the upgrades in Safety regimes and they will be the ones who ultimately bear any extra costs incurred. All the diving contractors, eg ADCI and IMCA members, would still be playing on the same level playing field since they will all undoubtedly pass the extra costs on to the Client. SO why are they so opposed to safety upgrading????
It seems a "no brainer"to me but maybe I'm missing something!

Here is the best comment I found on the OSHA/Coast Guard Petition:

I have more than 30-years of military, experimental and commercial diving experience. Tens of thousands of dives with zero fatalities and very few casualties (2-3). After studying recent commercial diving accident reports I've concluded that the regulations need to be changed. Currently they facilitate haste to perpetuate the money saving practices of the offshore oil and other industries. The regulations - when violated must be enforced with firm but fair punishment to deter repeating mistakes.

This is one of my favorite;

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The Canadian Standards Authority(CSA)standards for diving operations and personal competency are the best and safest diving standards in the world for inshore diving, and are available on the CSA website My link.

Here is the direct link to the CSA diving standards. note that you have to pay to download the actual standard

CSA Diving Standars

The way I see it the US has two distinct problems regarding diver safety: they are lacking a proper set of diving safety regulations, and there is no single organization responsible for enforcement of regulations. In working at solving the problem of the lack of regulations, care should be taken to also emphasize the critical importance of a single, nation-wide organization for enforcement, such as OSHA. This should help ensure even-handed enforcement of regulations and investigation of incidents whether in the Cook Inlet, East Bay or the Santa Barbara Channel. Regulations are definitely needed, but fair enforcement goes hand-in-hand for the system to work.

In Canada, each province and territory is responsible for their own safety laws. Some of them chose to accept the CSA standard for diving operations, and some did not. The Canadian Standards Association (CSA) is the Canadian equivalent of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and they had a panel of stakeholders from various industries that utilized diving operations that spent several years to come up with a document that, while certainly not perfect, is an excellent starting point. CSA had another panel that produced a standard for diver competency, which is what the Certification Board uses in evaluating divers and supervisors. The big problem Canada has is that no one agency enforces safety regulations coast-to-coast. Depending on the province you are in, or the job you are doing, you might be governed by federal regulations, or provincial regulations. For this reason, I believe you should really push for solid safety regulations, and one national body responsible for enforcement and investigation.

You should not rely on regulators or any government agency's to keep your workplace safe. The priority for regulators is not safety per se but enforcement of the regulations, no matter how bad those regulations may be. The diving industry Clients, Contractors, Supervisors and Divers must, at the end of the day, be responsible for safety in their own workplace and while good regulations can form a solid foundation if you leave safety to the regulators you will be sorely disappointed. A good starting point is for supervisors to make sure that the dive will be safe in all respects and for divers to refuse the dive if they believe the dive will be unsafe or hazardous.

Guest, on 02 October 2011 - 04:20 PM, said:

In the US there is next to no enforcement of the current regulation! I have been in the Commercial Diving Business since 1969 and have never seen an OSHA or Coast Guard Inspector on the job or at my company!

Guest, on 26 September 2011 - 12:38 PM, said:

Absolutely correct! The punishments need to be sufficiently rigorous to deter the violators from ever being tempted to repeat their transgressions, as has recently happened in civils in the UK.
The "tolerance" should be "Absolute Zero".
The root cause of the lack of enforcement, often elementary, is the complacency of the regulators and the wilful negligence and greed of many of the culprits. The problem is that by passing safety regimes keeps the violators in business because of the lower level of their costs which pushes the bona fide companies out of business because they cannot afford to compete unless they too proscribe their sefety regimes in practise. In other words too often the industry is working well below the bottom line in Safety as a result.

The Quote is from the comment of Olivia Smock singer # 855

" My husband Matthew Smock was killed 1-8-2011 as a result of unsafe diving practices and divers and tenders that were not doing their jobs. He leaves behind 4 young children. Our 4 year old son has cerebral palsy and I no longer have the help of his daddy to make his life amazing. His daddy can never be replaced. Laws need to be changed and diligence is of utmost importance. Please dive safely and follow safety guidelines as everyone on your crew are your brothers and their lives depend on you!"

I don't think I can add anything to that.

Why doesn’t the Coast Guard or OSHA have as a classification for Commercial Diver? I signed the petition.

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Thanks for the signature. OSHA has told me that there are not enough Commercial Divers for them to Track. The Coast Guard does not give an explanation.