When did it become okay to bend or break the rules?

[Gary]

Why do people want the rules changed?

We think we know that we can modify thirds to take advantage of an outflow in the cave. We think there are times and places that not running a reel may not introduce much extra risk on a cave dive.

Well there are people out there doing those things - against the rules. It introduces extra risk but they have accepted those extra risks.

Good for them! (for accepting responsibility for those extra risks)


Risks to themselves, risks to the cave, risk to other divers around them, risks of loosing access to caves, of government action to restrict cave diving, and risks to those who have to have to come in later to collect the bodies and clean up the mess.

(Well, we're not going to give them a medal for putting everyone else at risk but at least they realize and accept that they are putting everyone at risk.)


What people actually want from a change in the rules is for someone else to relieve them of the responsibility of actively making the decision to step outside the rules on their own and face the consequences of their decision.

Or people who are breaking the rules already and they want other people to declare what they are doing is "OK" to make them feel better about doing it.


Well it's not "OK".


That's the question of the thread right?

It's not OK. It's never been OK.

You break the rules you do it of your own decision. You take the risks. You face the consequences.

No one is going to to change the rules to make you feel better about breaking them. No one is going to change the rules to put other divers at more risk so you can act within the scope of the "modified" rules and tell yourself you aren't breaking any rules.


Accept responsibility for your own decisions. Don't ask others to pay the price of extra risk to make you feel better about it. And don't expect anyone to tell you it's OK.

[Ken Hill]

The subject is “When did it become okay to bend or break the rules?” The answer was and is never! A few have chimed in that the rules need to be looked at and changed. A few say, the rules are meant to be broken or interpreted the way they see fit.

In 1967 the rule of 1/3rds came to be and I was half way around the world from Florida. I heard about it and thought "WOW" those caves must be really bad. Also about then the Marion County Sheriff dynamited Paradise, in ’68 Morrison was blasted shut too. It is also the time that the NACD began and safe diving rules were implemented and training was initiated to teach divers how to dive and not die in underwater caves . Training was the selling point to the State of Florida to keep open water divers out of sites. No open water agency would teach cave diving, the “Y” tried briefly after the NACD and CDS took over the responsibility. The goal was and is keeping sites open and it worked. For many years cave deaths were something that happened to the untrained and the trained cave divers died from causes traced to a violation of the rules.

In order to teach a course there has to be standards, written by a training agency or cave organization and approved by insurance underwriters after consultation with their attorneys. There wouldn’t be any teaching if the standards read “turn the dive when you feel like it.” What if the standard was to say we don’t like rules. What some have said is that standards need to become recommendations.

We have in place a system that has worked for 40 years with the many thanks to all those people that died to make diving in the bell curve the safest place to be. There has always been the egotist , narcissist, daredevil and dumb and there continues to be. There are some that spout off on internet forums that sound like they know what they are talking about but either know nothing or do not care about any unintended consequences outside of their little world.

I re–read portions of Sheck’s book (CMTM) this morning. He has maybe six glossary references to “thirds.” Surprising is a line he wrote that many cave divers of the day thought the 1/3rds rule was too restrictive, “couldn’t get far enough back, Manatee was like swimming up Niagara Falls!” So the clamor for rule bending is NOTHING NEW. He laments that he turned his penetration of Cathedral because of thirds, despite the staging of numerous bottles to get out.

So to those who like an audience please stay off the forums because you might be doing someone some harm …. ever heard of email? /Ken

PS: Gary you are right on the money!!

[Kelly Jessop]

The subject is “When did it become okay to bend or break the rules?” The answer was and is never! A few have chimed in that the rules need to be looked at and changed. A few say, the rules are meant to be broken or interpreted the way they see fit.

In 1967 the rule of 1/3rds came to be and I was half way around the world from Florida. I heard about it and thought "WOW" those caves must be really bad. Also about then the Marion County Sheriff dynamited Paradise, in ’68 Morrison was blasted shut too. It is also the time that the NACD began and safe diving rules were implemented and training was initiated to teach divers how to dive and not die in underwater caves . Training was the selling point to the State of Florida to keep open water divers out of sites. No open water agency would teach cave diving, the “Y” tried briefly after the NACD and CDS took over the responsibility. The goal was and is keeping sites open and it worked. For many years cave deaths were something that happened to the untrained and the trained cave divers died from causes traced to a violation of the rules.

In order to teach a course there has to be standards, written by a training agency or cave organization and approved by insurance underwriters after consultation with their attorneys. There wouldn’t be any teaching if the standards read “turn the dive when you feel like it.” What if the standard was to say we don’t like rules. What some have said is that standards need to become recommendations.

We have in place a system that has worked for 40 years with the many thanks to all those people that died to make diving in the bell curve the safest place to be. There has always been the egotist , narcissist, daredevil and dumb and there continues to be. There are some that spout off on internet forums that sound like they know what they are talking about but either know nothing or do not care about any unintended consequences outside of their little world.

I re–read portions of Sheck’s book (CMTM) this morning. He has maybe six glossary references to “thirds.” Surprising is a line he wrote that many cave divers of the day thought the 1/3rds rule was too restrictive, “couldn’t get far enough back, Manatee was like swimming up Niagara Falls!” So the clamor for rule bending is NOTHING NEW. He laments that he turned his penetration of Cathedral because of thirds, despite the staging of numerous bottles to get out.

So to those who like an audience please stay off the forums because you might be doing someone some harm …. ever heard of email? /Ken

PS: Gary you are right on the money!!

Ken
Thank you for your timely comments. Interestingly I've always heard Sheck as being quoted as saying thirds is probably too liberal,because it assumes a lot of things. I recall a dive at JB,when JB used to really pump,and you'd know flow would help you out,and clear the silt. A section of the main passage near the middle grounds was blown out,and we had to do a slow on the line exit,because back then there were T's everywhere. I recall at that time thinking that this place doesn't blow out,so why is the viz gone. I am thankful that I didn't depend on the flow for my gas rule,because we consummed a lot of extra gas on that exit.

[skip]

Seems when we do accident analysis with exception of medical issues,or Parker Turner's accident,one of the basic rules has been violated. These core rules have been well tested,and when there is a fatality due to violation of these rules,then we have tested the rule again with lethal results. The rationale that we should test these core rules for validity is like saying I am going to commit murder to see if,"thou shall not kill" is applicable anymore, or the 3 angle of a triangle don't add up to 180 degrees. I am all for challanging the norm,that has been where cave diving innovation has come from,and accident analysis may prove there are more rules we need to consider,but the core rules have been verified enough in the obit column.

This is a bit of logic I have reservations about....just because a continuous guideline is not run does not mean a death is due to the lack of the guideline, or that the guideline would have prevented the death. I'm not saying don't run a line, I always do no matter how many lines are already in place. But there's no justfication for claiming cave divers death are caused by rule violations or that if the rule had not been violated then the diver would be alive. Correlation never ever implies causation and that's all accident analysis is. May be the best info we have, but let's not claim it means things it doesn't.

And to claim (earlier post) that we need to keep things secret, not on a public forum, but in private emails, in order to protect those cave divers who may not be capable of thinking on their own? gimme a break. if that's true we seriously need to reconsider proper training protocols. training is not supposed to produce blind rule followers or those easily swayed by a forum post.

PS: thou shalt not kill? Ok unless it's saddam hussein, bin laden, or some guy breaking in my house wanting my tv. and in spherical trigonometry the three angles of a triangle never add up to 180 degrees. Your examples prove the falsehood of the blind faith in rules. also fatalities are not tests, whether in a cave or in a hurricane...they are not tests of any hypothesis.

-skip

[Kelly Jessop]

. But there's no justfication for claiming cave divers death are caused by rule violations or that if the rule had not been violated then the diver would be alive.

The fact we have the rules support this. Need to go back to the dawn of North Florida cave diving when it was about to be outlawed to find these answers. Too many people died at this time period inorder to develop a set of rules that would keep the sport of cave diving alive. Unfortunately, there are many examples,which I prefer to leave the vicitim nameless,that violation of the rules was a facilitator of the incident.

[skip]

still, correlation never implies causation. facilitator? without proper testing it can't be legit and there is no good way to do proper testing. I agree that the rules from accident analysis are excellent rules, but they are based on observational data only and thus can not demonstrate cause-effect relations. I'm not saying let's change the rules, bend them or ignore them, I'm just saying let's not make them out to be more than they really are or give them more power than they have. They are not rules. They are GUIDELINES.

if you really want to use correlation then take a look at gender! dang 99% of cave diving fatalities are men! that means being male is a major cause of dying in a cave! NO MEN Allowed from now on! or maybe being male is a "facilitator."

-skip

[skip]

The fact we have the rules support this. Need to go back to the dawn of North Florida cave diving when it was about to be outlawed to find these answers. Too many people died at this time period inorder to develop a set of rules that would keep the sport of cave diving alive. Unfortunately, there are many examples,which I prefer to leave the vicitim nameless, that violation of the rules was a facilitator of the incident.

ok, how about this one....you say "about to be outlawed..." I think that's the rub. The issue here is not if the guidelines are written in stone, never to be bent, or altered, or improved, but that we have to deal with hostile authorities who see "rules" as a panacea, and thus we get to keep diving (at least keep the commercial sites open).

and again...people did not die in the early days "in order to develop a set of rules...." No one died to develop rules. They died. the GUIDELINES came later as a response to hostile authority.

faciltator? a rose by any other name. calling it a facilitator variable is just as wrong-headed and incorrect as calling it the primary cause. You can no more determine a "facilitator" variable from after the fact observations as you can the causative variables.

this is basic stats. 101. Please understand I am not against the "rules" and strongly endorse them for all cave dives no matter who you are - but let's not give make them out to be something they are most definitely not. Think, consider, change them up if your careful deliberate analysis of each situation leads to you believe that you (and others) will be better served by doing so. If you don't want to think that hard, if you want to be "intellectually lazy," then by all means follow the guidelines in blind faith and god speed to you.

-skip

[Kelly Jessop]

if you want to be "intellectually lazy," then by all means follow the guidelines in blind faith and god speed to you.

-skip

I guess I am stupid.

[skip]

I guess I am stupid.

we all know better than that! i suspect you are more interested in preserving access, ensuring survival of the less experienced, and projecting a safe attitude to the public than in the nuances of experimental psychology....

-skip

[contender]

Deleted!!! After re-reading it came across as being rude.

I don't always agree with Gary, but in this case I do.