Recreational Boating SafetyFederal Requirements for Wearing Personal Flotation Devices

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Coast Guard

33 CFR Part 175

[USCG-1999-6219]

Recreational Boating Safety--Federal Requirements for Wearing

Personal Flotation Devices

AGENCY: Coast Guard, DOT.

ACTION: Notice; request for comments.

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SUMMARY: The Coast Guard seeks (we seek) comments from interested

people, groups, and businesses about the need for, and possible

alternatives to, Federal requirements or incentives for people to wear

lifejackets while engaged in a limited number of specific boating

activities on the water. We will consider all comments and consult

further with the National Boating Safety Advisory Council (NBSAC) to

determine whether we should propose any Federal rules that would help

to reduce the number of recreational boaters who drown in the

circumstances identified by this notice and by the comments to it.

DATES: Comments and related material must reach the Docket Management

Facility on or before April 3, 2000.

ADDRESSES: To make sure your comments and related material (referred to

USCG-1999-6219) are not entered more than once in the docket, please

submit them by only one of the following means:

(1) By mail to the Docket Management Facility, U.S. Department of

Transportation, room PL-401, 400 Seventh Street SW., Washington, DC

20590-0001.

(2) By hand delivery to room PL-401 on the Plaza level of the

Nassif Building, 400 Seventh Street S.W., Washington, DC, between 9

a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. The

telephone number is 202-366-9329.

(3) By fax to the Docket Management Facility at 202-493-2251.

(4) Electronically through the Web Site for the Docket Management

System at http://dms.dot.gov.

The Docket Management Facility maintains the public docket for this

notice. Comments and material received from the public, as well as

documents mentioned in this preamble as being available in the docket,

will become part of this docket and will be available for inspection or

copying at room PL-401 on the Plaza level of the Nassif Building, at

the same address between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday,

except Federal holidays. You may also find this docket on the Internet

at http://dms.dot.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For questions on this notice, contact

Carlton Perry, Project Manager, Office of Boating Safety, by telephone

at 202-267-0979 or by e-mail at [email protected]. For questions on

viewing or submitting material to the docket, call Dorothy Walker,

Chief, Dockets, Department of Transportation, telephone 202-366-9329.

You may obtain a copy of this notice by calling the U.S. Coast

Guard Infoline at 1-800-368-5647, or read it on the Internet at the Web

Site for the Office of Boating Safety at http://www.uscgboating.org or

at http://dms.dot.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Regulatory History

On September 25, 1997, we published in the Federal Register a

notice of request for comments [62 FR 50280]. That notice, with the

title ``Recreational Boating Safety--Federal Requirements for Wearing

Personal Flotation Devices'', under docket number CGD 97-059, set the

closing date for comments for February 2, 1998. On March 20, 1998, we

published a second notice [63 FR 13586]. That notice, with the same

title and under the same docket number, reopened the comment period

until May 29, 1998.

Background and Purpose

A number of responses to the initial notice commented that the best

way to prevent drowning was to keep people from falling into the water

in the first place. Our review of data on recreational boating

accidents indicates

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that most people who drowned had ended up in the water unexpectedly and

were not able to put on lifejackets during the incidents. Federal

requirements to prevent unexpected falls overboard would unreasonably

restrict moving about on the vessel and would also likely interfere

with operating the vessel. We believe that the best way to minimize the

number of deaths due to drowning is to maximize the number of

recreational boaters wearing lifejackets, also known as personal

flotation devices (PFDs). Each year we sponsor a national campaign for

boating safety based on educational methods aimed at encouraging

recreational boaters to wear lifejackets. We also recognize, however,

that these nonregulatory methods of modifying behavior have not been

successful enough.

When we published the initial notice, we sought public comment on

the need for Federal requirements that any or all recreational boaters

wear lifejackets. The request asked the public to identify the various

conditions under which the use of lifejackets should be mandatory or

optional, or would be inappropriate.

We received over 600 written comments in response to the initial

notice. Most of them opposed any Federal requirements that all boaters

wear lifejackets all the time. However, almost 120 of them supported

Federal or State PFD requirements for at least some categories of

recreational vessels, boaters, or activities.

After summarizing the comments (copy in the public docket for this

notice), we consulted with NBSAC at its meetings in October 1998 and

April 1999 regarding the results. The Council recommended that we

publish another notice of request for comments, one that would focus

more on the need to propose rules calling for mandatory wear for

children, for operators of Personal Watercraft (PWC), and for people

being towed behind recreational vessels.

We have considered the recommendations of NBSAC (also in the public

docket for this notice), the comments we received in response to the

initial notice, and drowning statistics from reports on recreational

boating accidents. In this notice, we are again inviting comments from

the public, but only targeting vessels less than 16 feet in length,

which should include specific groups of high-risk recreational vessels,

boaters, and activities.

Recreational boating has grown dramatically over the last 20 years.

Over those years, there have been fewer and fewer deaths, thanks in

part to ongoing educational efforts like the Federal and State

Recreational Boating Safety Programs. Unfortunately, recreational

boating accidents still result in more deaths than all other

transportation-related accidents, except for motor vehicle accidents.

Most people who die in recreational boating accidents drown. During

1997, our data show, recreational boating accidents resulted in over

800 deaths, 588 of them by drowning. Of the 588 victims, most (523)

were not wearing lifejackets. Although 65 victims also drowned while

wearing them, information in the accident reports suggest that other

factors contributed to or even were the primary cause of death for most

of these 65. Many of the 588 might have survived if they had worn

lifejackets.

During 1997, vessels less than 16 feet in length accounted for 385

deaths, 293 by drowning, and vessels at least 16 feet in length, but

less than 26 feet in length, accounted for 294 deaths, 192 by drowning.

Also, during 1997, open motorboats accounted for 413 deaths, 307 by

drowning, and PWC accounted for another 84 deaths, 22 by drowning.

Sadly, during 1997, 25 children 12 years of age and under died in the

water, 14 by drowning.

Request for Comments

We encourage you to participate in this project by submitting

comments and related material about the need for, or alternatives to,

Federal requirements and incentives for recreational boaters to wear

lifejackets under the specific circumstances listed in this notice. We

emphasize that we are not contemplating such requirements or incentives

for commercial vessels, for larger recreational vessels, or for all

recreational boaters under all circumstances. We encourage you to

answer all of the following questions. We even encourage you to provide

information on any subject related to those questions if you feel your

comment addresses an issue we need to consider. We also solicit

comments from all segments of the recreational boating community, from

State boating safety authorities, from NBSAC, from the National

Association of State Boating Law Administrators (NASBLA), and from

other interested people, groups, and businesses, large or small, on the

economic or other effects of any such requirements or incentives.

If you submit comments, please include your name and address,

identify the docket number for this notice (USCG-1999-6219), indicate

the specific section of this document to which each comment applies,

and give the reason for each comment. You may submit your comments and

material by mail, hand delivery, fax, or electronic means to the Docket

Management Facility at the address under ADDRESSES; but please submit

your comments and material by only one means. If you submit them by

mail or hand delivery, submit them in an unbound format, no larger than

8\1/2\ by 11 inches, suitable for copying and electronic filing. If you

submit them by mail and would like to know they reached the Facility,

please enclose a stamped, self-addressed postcard or envelope.

We will summarize all the comments we receive during the comment

period, place a copy of the summary in the public docket, and provide

copies to the members of NBSAC for them to consider at their next

meeting. We will consider all relevant comments and material received

during the comment period in drafting any regulatory or nonregulatory

measures that may follow from this notice.

Public Meeting

We do not plan to hold a public meeting. But you may submit a

request for one to the Docket Management Facility at the address under

ADDRESSES explaining why one would be beneficial. If we determine that

one would aid this project, we will hold one at a time and place

announced by a later notice in the Federal Register.

Please consider and respond to the following questions:

1. Several States have imposed various requirements for wearing

lifejackets--by children, during water-skiing, aboard PWC, canoes and

kayaks, and sailboards, and so on. Should we continue to let individual

States determine their own requirements for wearing lifejackets? Or

should we propose Federal rules to--

a. Ensure that, if States do issue requirements for wearing

lifejackets, those requirements be consistent with one another?

b. Preempt the several States from issuing any such requirements at

all?

c. Apply only on those navigable waters where no State has issued

requirements for wearing lifejackets?

2. Should we propose Federal rules requiring that any or all of the

following recreational boaters wear lifejackets while underway? If so,

which?

a. Any child under 13 years of age, or under some other age?

b. Any boater on a recreational vessel less than 16 feet in length,

less than 20 feet in length, or some other length?

c. Any boater on a specific type of recreational vessel, such as an

open motorboat, a PWC, a sailboat, a

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sailboard, a rowboat, a canoe, or a kayak?

d. Any person being towed behind a recreational vessel on water

skis, on an inflatable raft or tube, or on some other device?

e. Any boater who is the sole occupant of a recreational vessel? If

so, should the rule not apply when a vessel capable of rendering

assistance accompanies the first vessel?

f. Any boater on a recreational vessel operating either in certain

water or weather--such as fast currents, white water, high tides, cold

weather, or gale-force winds--or where the recreational vessel is, or

could drift to, more than a given distance from land.

g. Any boater on a recreational vessel defined by a specific

combination of the boater's age, the vessel's type and size, its

operation, and the prevailing water or weather?

3. Should we propose any Federal rules that allow alternatives to

wearing Coast Guard approved lifejackets? If so, which alternatives?

And if so, for which vessels, activities, water or weather, or boaters?

4. Please describe any nonregulatory ways to reduce the number of

deaths by drowning, that are achievable at lower cost or with less

burden than by Federal rules for wearing lifejackets.

Dated: September 28, 1999.

Terry M. Cross,

Rear Admiral, U.S. Coast Guard, Acting Assistant Commandant for

Operations.

[FR Doc. 99-25864 Filed 10-4-99; 8:45 am]

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