2013 BARD query sample

This post is part of a series of posts. Links to the other posts can be found in the Introduction.

As laid out in our recent series of articles:

• Boating industry manufacturers have legal obligation in the U.S. to report significant safety hazards discovered by them post sale to the U.S. Coast Guard and to take appropriate actions.
• The legal duty (responsibility) boating manufacturers in the U.S. owe their U.S. customers to actively monitor their products post sale and warn existing owners of significant safety risks discovered post sale is currently in a state of flux. Some states/courts say yes, some courts say no, some courts base decisions on circumstances (size of manufacturer, ability to identify and warn customers, cost to warn vs. risk, etc.), others directly apply the Third Restatement of Torts.
• In the European Union (EU) boating industry manufacturers have a regulatory obligation to actively monitor their products post sale and to warn their customers of significant safety risks identified post sale meeting certain criteria. The E.U. defines a stringent criteria for such monitoring.
  

  Product Safety in Europe: A Guide to Corrective Action Including Recalls
   

  “Producers and distributors must have procedures for monitoring problems with their products. This means you need to have systems to collect and analyze the following information:

  • Reports of accidents involving your products
  • Complaints from customers, directly or via retailers
  • Warranty claims
  • Insurance claims or legal actions
  • Non-compliances reported by the company’s quality control procedures or by other organisations
  • Results of product testing
  • Information from service engineers
  • Reports on returned components and products
  • Any evidence of hazards arising from sales to unexpected user groups
  • Any evidence of consumer abuse or misuse of the product
  • Any evidence of malicious tampering with products

   
  This information needs to be reviewed regularly for signs that there may be a risk to consumers from any of the company’s products. This is especially important when the design of products changes or new component suppliers are used. If distributors have this information, they should share it with producers.”

• Boating industry manufacturers have a moral obligation to monitor the post sale performance of their products in the U.S. for significant safety issues and protect their customers by warning then, recalling the products, or taking other appropriate actions.
• U.S. Coast Guard Boating Accident Report Database, BARD, is or should be a leading external source for monitoring boating accidents for most boat builders and marine drive manufacturers in the United States.

In summary, companies making boats or equipment used with boats (1) have legal duty and a moral duty to report risks / dangers discovered after sale to the U.S. Coast Guard and take appropriate actions. (2)These same companies selling in Europe are REQUIRED to actively monitor their products in service for potential risks and hazards and notify European authorities of significant issues not in line with established requirements, (3) one of the best ways or the best way for boat and drive manufacturers to identify accidents involving their products post sale is BARD.

So we have established that one of the best ways for a boat builder, drive builder, and some other companies in the boating business to meet their legal, regulatory, and moral responsibilities is to monitor BARD for accidents involving their products.

We refer those not willing to accept the bolded statement above to a series of our recent articles for additional discussions and references:

This post is part of a series of posts. Links to the others can be found in the Introduction.

Portions of BARD are Invisible

The U.S. Coast Guard maintains the Boating Accident Report Database (BARD).

There are two groups of accidents in the version of BARD the Coast Guard Office of Boating Safety has access to.

1. Reportable accidents (we will collectively call them Reportable BARD). These accidents were reported to USCG and meet all the criteria to be listed in BARD. The criteria to be “reportable” include injured beyond first aid, or property or vessel damage of $2,000 or more, or some additional criteria). Only reported Reportable Accidents are summarized in the Coast Guard’s Annual Boating Statistics report (summary of accident counts of various type of accidents).
2. Non-reportable accident (we will call them Non-reportable accidents). Accidents reported to USCG, but not meeting the specific criteria to be listed in BARD (injured beyond first aid, property or vessel damage of $2,000 or more, or some other criteria). Non-reportable Accidents include accidents specifically excluded from BARD (accidents involving commercial vessels, accidents involving government vessels, accidents involving boats being test driven by manufacturers, dealers, or mechanics, boats involved in a crime, etc.).

Once a year, the Coast Guard releases a BARD computer database file of accident reports called Releasable BARD or Public BARD.

Some states refuse to release their accident data to the public. Those accidents are inside/among the “Reportable BARD” identified above. To comply with those States wishes, the Coast Guard excludes those accidents from Releasable BARD. The remaining reportable accidents are released to the public as “Releaseable BARD” or “Public BARD”.

The chart below explains the relationship between the different groups of accidents as USCG sees them and which ones are hidden from public view.

USCG BARD database chart

Click on the chart above to view a larger pdf version.

Which Boating Accidents are Hidden From View?

All accidents in the chart above, EXCEPT those in the yellow circle labeled Releasable BARD.

Focusing on BARD issues since 2007, the problem is countless accidents IN BARD cannot be seen by manufacturers or safety professionals. They are invisible.

As can be seen from the chart above of accidents reported to USCG from 2009-2013, Releasable BARD does NOT contain:

• Reportable accidents from States refusing to make their accident data available to the public.
• Accidents reported but not meeting the specific requirements to be listed in BARD (such injured beyond first aid or vessel and/or property damage of $2,000 or more).
• Accidents specifically excluded from BARD (accidents involving commercial vessels, accidents involving government vessels, accidents involving boats being test driven by manufacturers, dealers, or mechanics, boats involved in a crime, etc.

Accidents from the states refusing to supply their data to Releasable BARD are included in the accident counts supplied by USCG in their annual Recreational Boating Statistics report, but further details on the individual accidents are unavailable from Releasable BARD. For example USCG adds up the number of people that were struck by a propeller from all 50 states and the reporting territories and prints the total. However, we have no way of knowing any further details about those accidents occurring in states not reporting to Releasable BARD (what was the activity, were they ejected, was the boat circling, did someone come back to pick them up when they fell from a towed implement, what kind of boat was it, who was the boat builder, who made the marine drive, was the operator using a kill-switch, how many people were onboard, time of day, was alcohol a factor, etc.) All we can see is someone was struck by a prop, we can not even see what state they were in.

The same holds true for all types of accidents annually summarized by USCG in their Recreational Boating Statistics report.

The inability to see details of these accidents results in manufacturers not being able to perform their legal, moral, and regulatory duty. Manufacturers and safety professionals are unable to identify or correctly identify safety issues arising after sale, and thus unable to warn their customers. Customers are needlessly killed and injured.

For example, 2013 Releasable BARD included this statement:

2013 Releasable BARD
 
“Not all states/jurisdictions gave the Coast Guard the permission to release records. The Coast Guard did not have permission to release data from the following jurisdictions: AK, CA, CT, HI, MI, MS, MO, OR, PA, WA, and CNMI. Thus, the records (961 accidents involving 1284 vessels, 148 deaths and 589 injuries) from these states/jurisdictions were deleted.“

With 4,062 accidents reported in BARD 2013, that means 961/4,062 or 23.7% are invisible to boating industry manufacturers, and safety professionals.

at least it wasn’t as bad as 2010:

2010 Releasable BARD
 
“Not all states/jurisdictions gave the Coast Guard the permission to release records. The Coast Guard did not have permission to release data from the following jurisdictions: Alaska, American Samoa, California, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Delaware, Guam, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Dakota, the Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Washington. Thus, the records (1,910 accidents involving 2549 vessels, 304 deaths and 1,308 injuries) from these states/jurisdictions were deleted.“

4,604 accidents were reported in BARD in 2010, that means 1910/4604 or 41.5 percent of them are invisible to boating industry manufacturers and safety professionals.

AND that is just the states not reporting to Releasable BARD.

Of those that reported, in 2013, 653 accidents involving 30 deaths and 150 injuries were not reported in Releasable BARD because they were “non-reportable scenarios”. That grows the 2013 invisible accidents to (961 plus 653 = 1614) out of a total of (961 plus 4062 = 5023) accidents or 32.1 % being invisible in 2010.

The same calculations for 2010 follow, 1,006 accidents involving 52 deaths and 204 injuries were not reported in Releasable BARD because they were “non reportable scenarios”. That grows the 2010 invisible accidents to (1910 plus 1,006 = 2,916) out of a total of (1910 plus 4604 = 6514) or 44.8% being invisible in 2013.

So What if Some Boating Accidents are Hidden From View?

BARD already has challenges with under reporting, but blocking as many as 30 to 45 percent of the existing data that did get reported annually from view of boat builders, drive manufacturers, and safety professionals causes countless more people to be injured and killed before certain relationships are discovered, hazards/risks identified, and customers are warned.

Its even worse than we just portrayed. Some of accident reports that are visible do not contain sufficient data to be useful to boat and marine drive manufacturers. For example, in 2013,   4,174 vessels were visible in Releasable BARD (more vessels than accidents because some accidents involve more than one vessel). Of those 4174 vessels, 2,949 did not identify the engine/drive manufacturer (about 325 were air thrust, manual powered, or sailboats), and 227 did not identify the boat builder. Those reporting deficiencies make it even more important to gain access to the invisible accidents.

Yes, we know BARD has to maintain certain criteria for an accident to be officially listed so the counts can be accurately compared from year to year. We are just saying, keep things the same, but let boating manufacturers and boating safety professionals learn valuable information already collected from accidents in States withholding their records from Releasable BARD due to privacy issues and from accidents that did not meet the criteria to be listed.

The following sections detail how that can be done, while still meeting the concerns of states for the privacy of their citizens.

Privacy Issues

BARD privacy issues are thoroughly addressed in Privacy Impact Assessment for the Boating Accident Report Database. November 12, 2009.

Several quotes from the report above are provided below. They explain ways in which boating manufacturers and safety professionals could access the data less any PII (Personal Identifying Information) IF parties would work together to grant that access.

For those who say our request is impossible, we refer you to this statement from the Overview near the bottom of page 4 of the above report:

Privacy Impact Assessment for the Boating Accident Report Database
 
“USCG users have the ability to download a set of data from a state and have the ability to query a selection of data for a state, multiple states, or nation. Neither of these methods allows the user access to PII (Personally Identifiable Information).”

From Section 1.7 on page 8:

Privacy Impact Assessment for the Boating Accident Report Database
 
“USCG-contracted companies that use boating accident report data in their work. The Boating Safety Division has mandated that offsite contractors sign non-disclosure agreements if using boating accident report data.”

From Section 5.1 on page 12:

Privacy Impact Assessment for the Boating Accident Report Database
 
“The Boating Safety Division shares information with a number of external organizations. In general, PII is not shared with a non-contracted organization unless a Coast Guard lawyer has agreed to the sharing. Contracted groups must sign a non-disclosure agreement before receiving data that has PII in it. These external organizations include boating safety partners such as the National Association of State Boating Law Administrators (NASBLA) and the National Boating Safety Advisory Council (NBSAC).”

From Section 5.1 on page 13:

Privacy Impact Assessment for the Boating Accident Report Database
 
“Other boating safety partners include recipients of Coast Guard Boating Safety Division grants and special interest groups that receive data. In fiscal year 2008, the Boating Safety Division issued thirty-seven grants to non-profit organizations. Often, these grant recipients request boating safety data to support their project. In one such instance, a grant was administered to an organization to analyze propeller strike injuries. The Boating Safety Division provided all data received since 1969 to the individuals so that they would be able to run the data through more advanced programs than what the Coast Guard has available.”

Section 8.1 on page 16 hints how BARD-Web could also be accessed, note PII is blocked from certain viewers:

Privacy Impact Assessment for the Boating Accident Report Database
 
“BARD-Web users are grouped and endowed with a level of privileges discussed in the Overview of this document. Their use of queries is documented by the contractor as is their communication with the contracted company.”

From Section 8.6 on page 17:

Privacy Impact Assessment for the Boating Accident Report Database
 
“Privacy concerns are also apparent with offsite, contracted companies that use boating accident report data in their work. The Boating Safety Division has mandated that offsite contractors sign non-disclosure agreements if using boating accident report data.”

Create a New Class of BARD Users

We are not suggesting this additional data be publicly widely distributed. BARD already comes in multiple formats (CDRom distributed Releasable BARD, BARD-Web, USCG created BARD subsets for contractors, etc.) and has several user classes (contractors that maintain the database, certain users at USCG Office of Boating Safety, other USCG Office of Boating Safety users, the states, research contractors, NBSAC, NASBLA, etc.). Each user class is granted access to only as much private information as necessary for their task, those granted access to privacy information are required to sign non-disclosure documents delineating exactly what can and cannot be disclosed about those accidents.

We support creating another class of users for boating industry manufacturers and boating safety professionals that allows them access to the accidents they cannot currently see (those of states not reporting to Releasable BARD and reported non-reportable accidents) from 2008 thru the most current annual release of Releasable BARD. The new class may be required to sign a nondisclosure agreement detailing the handling of the data and any summaries of that data.

All Personal Identifying Information (PII) can be removed from the version distributed to this new user class. Even the Hull Identification Number (HIN) after the first three digits (boat manufacturer code) can be redacted if necessary.

BARD Access and the Tipping Point

Manufacturers have a tipping point. Once a problem reaches a certain size it gets their attention and they begin to respond. Sometimes problems take a long time to reach their attention or are thrust to the forefront by victims and victim’s families (Houseboat CO2 problems). Sometimes the courts force their hand (installation of kill switches in the early 1980s, PWC off-throttle steering in the late 1990’s).

Sometimes problems that should be addressed never reach critical mass. Not enough victims are aware of similar accidents, boating safety advocates are unaware of the real size of the problem, the industry does not learn of most of the accidents, if it does rise to the attention of the industry they treat them like fliers or freak accidents.

Electric shock drownings is an example of an area that recently reached the tipping point.

Access to the “Invisible BARD” could help these types of accidents (accidents not currently on the industry’s radar OR previous viewed as freak accidents by them) reach critical mass faster and then be addressed by the industry.

We suggest that accidents like electric shock drowning accidents (swimming in freshwater near docks with a shore power ground fault) could have been identified faster with full access to BARD. Instead, it took a lot of noise from the parents of a deceased child to get enough attention to cause USCG to fund an American Boat and Yachting Council (ABYC) study on fresh water currents, which eventually led to the modification of an ABYC standard (ABYC E-11) plus some safety advice for marinas. A similar process might have ran its course years earlier if the hidden data was available. The young boy who died and others who died after him, may have then survived.

These types of discussions (does some specific problem / type of accident really need addressed or not) are going on today on several fronts.

For example, we have identified over 60 accidents in which an outboard motor struck a submerged object and flipped into a boat, often with the engine still under power and the propeller rotating. Several individuals have been killed, and many critically injured. Our findings are over many years and severely limited by our inability to see the invisible accidents in BARD. Prior to 2008 we are limited by the lack of access to BARD narratives of the accidents which is the only place we could learn if the outboard flipped in or not. Most of our findings prior to 2008 are from press clippings. As a result of our work, we began identifying a subset of these accidents, high horsepower outboard motors striking submerged objects and flipping into boats, often in fishing tournaments, while practicing for tournaments, or by competitive anglers just fishing on their own.

Attempting to stimulate a response from the boating industry, we identified, wrote, and posted a paper detailing several technologies and approaches that could be used to prevent these accidents.

The industry has not responded. Our work has not been enough to reach the tipping point. Things might be considerably different if we were granted access to the unseen accidents in BARD. Those additional accidents might help us reach the tipping point and cause the industry to respond.

Meanwhile we are just setting back covering more and more “outboard flipped in” accidents as they occur. Some are quite gruesome and claim the lives of promising young men in the prime of their lives. Rather than providing gruesome examples, we refer readers to the comments of a recent survivor, professional angler Rex Chambers.

Us continuing to attempt to identify “outboard flipped in” accidents in the press and cover those accidents on our site is not spurring the industry to action. However, granting the industry and us access to the missing BARD accidents could be the tipping point that leads to saving lives.

This is only one of many examples of how the current lack of access to this data is costing the lives of boaters.

In Conclusion

Over 10,000 boating accidents reported to USCG from 2009-2013 are absent from Releasable BARD from 2009-2013. Their absence cripples the ability of industry and boating safety professionals to identify emerging problems OR better understand the scale of known problems.

With substantial under-reporting of accidents, BARD is just a sample of the existing accidents. Under current restrictions, Releasable BARD is just a sample of the sample.

Please join us in this call to save lives. We encourage manufacturers, the National Boating Safety Advisory Council, the Coast Guard Office of Boating Safety, and others to help stop this unnecessary loss of lives AND to help boat manufacturers meet their legal, moral, and regulatory responsibilities.

Some say the industry wants to keep the closet door closed on these hidden accidents and does not want boating safety activists shining their lights around in the closet. It is not a closet, it is more like a casket. Prove them wrong, do the right thing and open the door.

Postlogue

We know this series of posts was very long, links to the entire series are available from the Introduction.

Be sure to revisit our handout as it quickly, graphically summarizes the issues.

We encourage you to distribute printed or electronic copies of the handout to anybody interested in boating safety. Note, the Coast Guard specifically approves copying and distribution of their 2013 annual recreational boating summary in the interest of boating safety.