Are PWCs more dangerous than boats?

Sales of Personal Water Craft (PWCs), Sea-Doos, WaveRunners, Jet Skis, and so on, are growing globally. Industry figures from North America to Australia show year-on-year double digit growth in the segment. At about $15-$25k on average, PWCs are an affordable and convenient way to get afloat.

But with more PWCs on the water, attracting more interest from authorities and media, there's the perception that they are more dangerous than boats. It's a bit like the motorbikes-versus-cars debate. With this in mind, we thought we'd drill down into the marine data which, we're pleased to say, doesn't support the idea that riding a PWC is more dangerous than a boat.

From 2007 to 2016 in Queensland, there were 401 PWCs involved in 306 reported marine incidents, which resulted in nine fatalities and 135 other people being injured.

Over the same period, the number of registered PWC rose by an average of 10 per cent a year from 9977 in 2007 to 23,435 in 2016, while the number of PWC licenses rose by an average of 14.5 per cent a year from 45,829 in 2007 to 155,828 in 2016.

THE TREND IN QLD
Marine Safety Queensland makes the point that the number of incidents, the number of PWCs involved, the number of people involved, and the total number people injured, do not provide any evidence of a trend over the period to rising fatalities, injuries or unsafe craft.

In fact, given the consistent increase in the number of registered PWC over the period, the number of reported incidents per 10,000 registrations has exhibited a significant downward trend over the period in Queensland, authorities confirm.

In certain areas, the number of breaches of navigation and maritime regulations has been reported as disproportionately high compared with boats in the same areas.

But dangerous, erratic and antisocial behaviour on PWCs has more to do with the culture of certain riders — an issue that authorities are addressing in those communities — rather than some inherent danger with the craft.

PWC TRENDS IN NSW
In NSW, Roads and Maritime says from 2006-07 to 2015-16 there were 188 reported incidents involving a PWC.  These incidents resulted in 66 serious injuries and three fatalities.

There is no trend in the rate of overall PWC incidents per 100,000 registered PWC, nor in the corresponding rate of PWC serious injury incidents, RMS told us in a statement.

Over the 10-year period, separate data from RMS shows that PWC were primarily involved in 14.9 per cent of serious injury incidents, which is higher than their relative involvement in incidents generally (6.9 per cent) and higher than their relative share of vessel registrations (5.5 per cent at the end of 2016-17).

While PWC-related fatalities are few, the number of people seriously injured is relatively high, RMS says. But, as with Queensland, you also need to take into account the increasing popularity of PWCs in NSW.

Over the period 2006-07 to 2015-16, the number of registered PWC in NSW rose from 7116 in 2006-07 to 12,356 in 2015-16.  Based on recent years, the rate of increase in registered PWCs appear to be accelerating from an average of nearly 6 per cent per year to more like 10 per cent in recent years in NSW.

With more PWCs on the water, increased rider education is essential and, it seems from the data, effective. But the idea that PWCs are more dangerous than boats isn’t supported by the incident reports.

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