PropellerSafety.com

Archive for Boating Safety – Page 21

USCG 2010 Boating Accident Report Database (BARD) Has Been Castrated

The State of California asked USCG to remove their boating accidents from BARD beginning in 2000 to protect the privacy of their citizens. Supposedly their data is still included in the summaries, but we can no longer see the details of individual boating accidents in California. Over time, a few more states have leaped on […]

Litigation Testing Continues in Testing of Propeller Guards by Mercury Marine / Brunswick

Litigation Testing of propeller safety devices was defined by Stephen Bolden, author of Motorboat Propeller Injury Accidents, as “…manufacturers, in performing litigation testing, are not concerned with gathering information for the purpose of redesigning or improving a guard; rather, they are concerned with simply reporting on whatever propeller guard deficiencies they are able to demonstrate […]

Brunswick Misled Two Federal Courts on Frequency of Propeller Accidents

Brunswick requested a rehearing of the Jacob Brochtrup v. Mercury Marine and Sea Ray propeller injury case before the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on June 10, 2011. Mercury Marine and Sea Ray are both divisions of Brunswick. On page three of Brunswick’s formal request for a rehearing, Brunswick faults Brochtrup for not providing […]

Does the Risk-Utility Test Exception for Simple Tools Apply to Boat Propellers?

In mid 2011, Brunswick requested a rehearing of their appeal of the Jacob Brochtrup propeller injury case in front of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Brunswick feels the original court (U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas, Austin) did not force Brochtrup to prove the design of their boat was unreasonably dangerous under […]

Propeller Accident News Media Coverage Phase 3 (Released From Hospital Stay) Wordle

The third in a series of posts investigating news media coverage of propeller accidents. We continue with our study using news media coverage of the Gabby DeSouza February 5, 2011 boat propeller accident as our example. This one follows our Phase 2 The Hospital Stay Wordle. This time we analyzed several news media articles of […]

Propeller Accident News Media Coverage Phase 2 (The Hospital Stay) Wordle

This article is a continuation of our series investigating news media coverage of propeller accidents by using wordles of a collection of news articles about a specific accident. It follows, Phase 1 Breaking News Coverage of Propeller Accidents. We continue to study news media coverage of the same boat propeller accident, Gabby DeSouza injured by […]

Propeller Accident News Media Coverage Phase 1 (Breaking News Reports) Wordle

We mentioned in our earlier post on using wordles to explore propeller safety topics our intention of using wordles to identify common threads in media coverage of propeller accidents. For those not familiar with wordles, they are a form of word art in which the relative size of a word represents its relative frequency in […]

Brunswick Calls For Rehearing of Brochtrup Propeller Case Appeal

The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals found for Brochtrup on May 27, 2011 in Brunswick’s appeal of a U.S. District Court, Western District, Austin Division jury finding for Brochtrup resulting from a July 1, 2005 propeller accident. Mercury Marine and Sea Ray are the Brunswick units listed on the case. On June 10, 2011 […]

Virginia Beach Propeller Accident Impales Girl’s Leg – Alexis Angelopolous

A 12 year old girl (later identified as Alexis Angelopolous) was impaled between propellers of a stern drive boat in Chesapeake Bay off Virginia Beach (va beach va) Thursday afternoon 30 June 2011. Firefighters and a police dive instructor report it was one of the most difficult rescues they ever attempted. First responders held her […]

Use of Wordles in Studying Propeller Safety

Wordles are a form of word art. They display the frequency of use of individual words in a passage of text by the relative font size of the word in an image. The individual words are displayed all jumbled together in colorful, eye pleasing collection of fonts and colors. As we view wordles, we begin […]