To the editor:<\/p>\n
After the tragic accident on the 29th\u00a0of this month, a witness and friend of the victims of the boating crash in Cape Coral is quoted as saying they would like to \u201cturn the tragedy into purpose by creating a water safety training program.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a caring thought in the wake of loss, and I would like to share that local water safety training is available.<\/p>\n
Since 2017 I have had the pleasure of teaching a nationally approved boating safety education course at the Cape Coral Sail and Power Squadron. Most of the 1,200 students that attend those classes say they have found our waterways are different from those \u201cback home.\u201d They express amazement at how crowded our waterways are and complain about the lack of courtesy shown by other boaters.<\/p>\n
These training programs exist today, the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary offers\u00a0Boat America,\u00a0and you can find those classes here,\u00a0https:\/\/www.cgaux.org\/boatinged\/class_finder\/index.php. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The United States Power Squadron offers\u00a0America\u2019s Boating Course\u00a0and you can find those classes here,\u00a0https:\/\/americasboatingclub.org\/index.php\/americas-boating-course.<\/p>\n
Both courses are approved by the National Association of State Boating Law Administrators and the State of Florida. Graduates receive a State of Florida Boater Education I.D. Card.<\/p>\n
Accidents, unfortunately, do happen. <\/p>\n
Over the last 10 years Lee County averaged 40 reportable boating accidents, 22 injuries and four deaths. <\/p>\n
Both the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission and the United States Coast Guard stress the benefits of classes that provide nationally approved boating safety education certificates. The Coast Guard reports that nationally, \u201c69% of deaths occurred on boats where the operator did not receive boating safety instruction and that \u201cOnly 19% of deaths occurred on vessels where the operator had received a nationally approved boating safety education certificate.\u201d <\/p>\n
Lee County has close to 50,000 registered vessels and likely another 50,000 unregistered vessels.<\/p>\n
If you haven\u2019t taken a local class, please consider it.<\/p>\n
Thomas E. Dawson, volunteer instructor, <\/p>\n
Cape Coral Sail and Power Squadron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the editor: After the tragic accident on the 29th\u00a0of this month, a witness and friend of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-78202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}