Diver education safety organization

[vicp]

I'm glad to see you have a well thought out plan like this one. My original point was that the American system for maintaining quality instruction in its schools, with all its close checks and expensive processes, still leaves us with poor instructors. I asked how you would do a better job without all those resources, assuming you did not have a better plan. I see I was wrong. Now that I see the plan is "not to use anything even remotely resembling it" so that you can do a better job, I am ready to rush on board with this.

Or maybe not.

With all due respect John, my point was that "the American system for maintaining quality instruction in its schools, with all its close checks and expensive processes" in fact leaves us with poorly performing students and actually helps create ineffective ("poor" as you call them) instructors.

You are correct, part of my plan (the non-plan part) is not to even think about implementing anything "remotely resembling" the "resources" of the American public school system. Think about it, even if it were financially and logistically possible, it would truly kill diving as we know it. The other part (the plan part) is to have a nationally recognized non-profit cave conservancy organization disown the training business (which in fact engenders profit for member instructors) and propose/define standards that the for-profit training agencies would be willing to endorse (a consortium possibly). Then educate the consumers and let them decide what is most effective with their purchasing power. It seems to work in business (IT for example). We need keep in mind that while we like to differentiate technical/cave diving from recreational, it is still mostly all recreational (other than life/safety, military, commercial) and all of it is consumer determined.

Creating another ad-hoc populist group that would attempt monitoring, reprimands, reviews, annual physicals along with enforcement of such is both ridiculous and repulsive (to me).

Or maybe not (to you??)

I still fail to see how any of this will prevent the 95% of fatalities being untrained divers. ...
... prime example is Eagles Nest, there is no prohibition from open water divers diving the basin ... In my opinion expecting open water divers to just stay in the basin is unrealistic.

None of this will prevent the type of fatalities mentioned here, not even total prohibition. While knee-jerk plans may feel good at first, they will not work. The only chance we have to diminish these fatalities is through education and public awareness.

[TraceMalin]

Steve, I voted that I would "fully support" such an organization. The problem is that this has been tried before and failed. First, training agencies themselves were supposed to ensure diver quality. When that wasn't enough, the RSTC was supposed make sure training agencies provided programs with a minimum safe standard. That turned into a joke. Andrew Georgitsis toyed with the idea of creating a DIR vetting organization which would give the stamp of approval for instructors from other agencies who were trained by GUE or who were experts in DIR diving, but who didn't want to join that organization. Instead, he formed UTD. I'm very interested in how you think this could be accomplished? That's an honest question, not a snarky remark. Since I've been on the board of directors of PDIC, RSTC, WRSTC and PSAI and trained by GUE to Tech 2, I'm interested in your thoughts on how to provide the ultimate oversight or vetting body that could allow for differences in standards and philosophies. Clearly, though, diver education needs to come from the top down from cave diving to tech diving to recreational diving.

[tflaris]

Post deleted

[nakatomi]

Several of us are the Instructor Trainers, Instructors and a few divers who are more then fed up with the current situation.
By current situation please read the threads over cave damage, instructors who think breaking the rules at a state park are ok and the ones covering standard violations. All of which not one reprimand has been issued.

I don't share your opinion that the training agencies are responsible for all the problems in the world of cave diving, most of them are being caused by individual divers, not the instructors who trained them. While I would be all for better training and more quality control, your approach is going entirely in the wrong direction, in my opinion.

Please try to detail exactly the individual issues you see (instead of referring to threads) and how they should be tackled.

When you refer to standards being broken, please name (and if possible quote) these standards so we can see what you are talking about.

[speleodiver]

Since we are in the figuring out phase of this situation. Let me pose a question? All of you who think this wont work or isn't the answer, instead of asking more questions about the current approach, please feel free to tell what you think will work. As I stated early on, this is a community issue. Everyone posting here is part of the community so let me be blunt. We all have admitted through other posts like EN, Peacock, see something, say something, there is a problem. So are we gonna keep up the complaining about what is happening every time something happens or actually do something about it? IMO, 90 percent of cave divers just like to talk about everything. 10 percent actually take action. This is where see something say something fails. It takes a lot more then just talk. Maybe the better approach is see something, do something. But of course the issue here is who has the authority to do something. As pointed out, even the ranger at EN could have only made sure the fee was paid.

Personally, I would rather tackle the issue then to just jump online and complain about it every time it happens. If you don like my approach then please offer up another one. This is how good solutions are reached.

The entire purpose of this post was to draw thoughts towards a solution. Will it be the fix we need. Only time will tell. So my advice to everyone is pour out your thoughts to fix the issue instead of analyzing how the only approach on the table won't work.

I expected a lot of negativity towards any approach to a solution. And I also do not expect too many second opinions. Everyone who has posted as been offered to give input. So far all I see is "it won't work". Well what will? Lets hear it?

[pocky]

I remember being a rec diver and seeing the "techie" crowd with all the shiny gadgets and tanks. Always thought to myself "man, they must be good divers!" I asked one about a computer - think it was a VR3 - said it was cool, and he told me I shouldn't be looking at tec computers since I was just a rec diver. After that, he wasn't a good diver anymore, he was just an #######.

People have this strange tenancy to subconsciously say "&*&@ you!" when a tone of superiority is established. I've asked about caves a time or two before I got into this - and the response was always the same - "you can't go until you get trained". Needless to say, the thought of "f*@# you dude, I'm going" crossed my mind more than once. I don't want to dive with assholes, and I sure don't want to get trained by assholes, but I DO want to go cave diving! It's easy for us to forget that we're creatures of emotion first, and logic second.

I will not disagree with anyone that there is room for improvement within the community. I will not disagree that our litigious society has swayed organizations in most any sport to "drop the ball". I will not disagree that there are instructors out there who could improve. I will not disagree that most divers who have a passion for this sport also have a desire to improve. And, I will not disagree with the fact that first impressions are not completely accurate, and (in general) you're a lovely group of people who are very welcoming.

All I'm asking is this - have we not considered why someone wouldn't want to get trained?

I mean - I can hop in my truck and hit up a dozen caves that are all on public lands with public access. Doesn't matter whether I go in with doubles, an AL80, or a few party balloons. Who are any of you to stop me? As a community, I feel that in the process of becoming "better divers", we've projected this image of "I'm a better diver than you" - and nobody wants to dive with those guys.


Edit: The solution, I feel, rests in how we perceive ourselves and how we connect with those outside the community. I have continually seen a focus on keeping people out of the caves, and I'm inclined to agree that the possibility of that happening (us included) is more than just an idle thought. What we're doing is creating obstacles and barriers - artificial ones at that - which any regular Joe with a canoe can circumvent. Going off the deep end on an open water diver just past the cavern zone just means you're an #######, and you accomplish nothing. I'll agree we do a wonderful job with mentoring new members in the community, and I have personally benefited greatly from it - but the catch seems to be "in the community". I'm all for "saying something" - but personally, and without condoning untrained cave dives of any kind, I feel we could focus a lot more on inclusion, than exclusion.

[speleodiver]

Pocky,

You may have a good point here. We as a community do tend to not embrace those outside our sport. Personally, tell me I can't do something and I will. Who am I to go against anyone else doing it? Hypocrite tends to come to mind. This is why I'm not out to make people do anything but rather improve on what we have in place. Like I said earlier, who does want to continually improve? To me it's like a cave diver saying I could give a crap less about what's around that next corner. Our goal is to make sure seeing around the next corner is achievable and done so safely instead of breaking thirds because its just another 100 feet away.

We need more constructive posts like tho at tho point. We are working towards a solution. If it works great if not at least a few of us can say we did more than just complain about it. How many lives have been saved by all the complaining?? It seems fruitless to me.

[TraceMalin]

I think the long term answer to protect access to dive sites is to do away with progressive attitudes. It may take a village to raise a child, but the village shouldn't be blamed if a child grows up to be a Darwin Award winner. The cave community has been a shining example of a group of enthusiasts with a history of exercising due care and attempting to do all we can to promote safety. This very thread of yours is an example of cave divers trying to come up with a solution to save lives! Yet, people fall through the cracks of the safeties we put in place. Warnings are ignored and rules are broken. To protect access, we need to change public perception of the dangers of cave diving. Public perception is a problem for adventurers and sportsmen everywhere. We've become a nation in which personal accountability somehow gives way to the need to lay blame on someone else. If we start raising children to own up to their actions and somehow begin to get people to accept responsibility for their actions again our legal system may follow. But, this will take time ... perhaps generations? Since we live in a world in which we are dealing with a lack of personal accountability our community continues to strive to find solutions like you are doing.

Years ago, when Jim Wyatt was teaching my girlfriend to cave dive at Ginnie Springs, a guy from New Jersey bragged about how he didn't need cave training to cave dive. He was a Jersey wreck diver and caves were easy. I tried to convince him to take Jim's class. Jim asked me, "Would you really want a guy like that in a cave diving class?" Point taken. In this case all you could do was let Ginnie know about it because his attitude would probably get him killed whether he had cave training or not. Sure. You could get him in a class hoping he would learn something and maybe change his attitude, but then you might also have a guy who knows how to play nice for the instructor and then go break rules after class.

One of my open water students (when I was PDIC) decided to do a solo night dive in 115 feet of water with only one light and no DSMB or up-line in a river with a fast current and 3 feet or less of visibility. His light failed. He called to thank me for the great training because he didn't panic, but he blamed two tech divers who told him not to use a float and flag because it might get tangled on a tree or something. This was before PDIC or SDI had a solo program when "Never dive alone," was the mantra and mentioned more than once in the manual and in class. I told him that I must suck as an instructor because somewhere between, "Here is a face mask look for tempered glass," and, "Congratulations! Here is your C-card," I failed to mention that he shouldn't do a solo night dive in 115 feet of water with only one light and no DSMB or up-line in a river with a fast current and 3 feet or less of visibility the first dive after receiving said C-card.

Even GUE and UTD are not immune to rule breakers despite quality control. I know a guy who passed a DIR instructor course (not saying which of the two agencies) and did a solo cave dive the next day. He probably couldn't get away with that in cave country now because he is known as a DIR instructor.

Even if we took instructors and put them through the most intelligent and rigorous assessment we could ever create to vet them to the public there are two problems we would face.

1. We can't guarantee the behavior of students after class.
2. We couldn't necessarily get the public to realize the benefit of such instructors when selecting a class.

If a vetting body wouldn't have an impact, then perhaps a governing body? As to who would compose such a body, my immediate thought would be that a different body such as the RSTC might be formed with representatives sitting on the board from the tech and cave agencies. That would include us at PSAI, ANDI, IANTD, TDI, GUE, UTD, NSS-CDS, NACD and NAUI. We could sell tickets and finally make money in diving! If we included the RSTC agencies, we might be able to change the face of recreational diving by improving gear and skill work.

I just thought of something funny about how our sport is evolving, I was in a DEMA a focus group with one of Jacques Cousteau's sons. He said that his father believed the buoyancy compensator ruined diving. Maybe the cave community can fix it? But, the solution would have to become universally accepted and not based upon finger pointing or blame. Like Pocky pointed out, the message falls on ears willing to connect due how we perceive the messenger. That's where DIR failed to assimilate everyone.

[TraceMalin]

Actually, with DIR on my mind, I recall something Jarrod Jablonski said in the 2004 GUE DVD's. Something like, "The problem with conventional instruction is that you learn just enough in class to kill yourself." Maybe we change the face of scuba instruction by creating some sort of mentoring network?

[nakatomi]

Maybe we change the face of scuba instruction by creating some sort of mentoring network?

I think that's a great idea! Maybe something like a network of mentors that are experienced divers and very proficient at what they do, be it in backmount doubles, sidemount, staging, surveying, DPV, rebreathers, knowledge in specific caves and environments etc.

A new diver looking to get into any of these segments could get in contact with possible mentors, learn from them and ultimately also dive with them. They could help him/her iron out any configuration issues, make sure that what was learned in training is transformed into solid and safe experience.
And above all, help the diver make the right decisions that will keep him/her safe.

Obviously this would not replace training but help divers get into the migration process of making safe dives after getting trained.