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Martime Safety Queensland compliance officers will be on the water these holidays enforcing regulations around speeding and life jackets. MSQ’s summer holiday patrols saw high rates of boaties exceeding legal speed limits and not complying with life jacket rules. Most recreational boating deaths involve people not wearing life jackets.
Maritime Safety Queensland is urging boaties to stay safe these Easter holidays by slowing down and wearing life jackets when on the water. MSQ’s Easter boating safety campaign, which will target non-compliance with speed and life jackets regulations, will run from March 27 to April 14, 2024.
To help keep everyone safe on the water, MSQ’s Maritime Enforcement Team, which more than doubled in size over the past 12 months, will be out on the water ensuring boaties are doing the right thing and complying with the required safety rules.
The MET’s safety campaign through the summer school holidays noted a 10 percent increase in non-compliance from previous years – in particular speeding and failing to have the correct life jackets onboard and/or wear them properly.
The MSQ enforcement team issued a combined total of 358 infringements and warnings to boaties not doing the right thing on the water over the summer holidays.
Queensland has more than a million recreational boat licence holders (including personal watercraft/jetski licences), many of whom flock to the waterways over the Easter school holidays.
Sadly, there were 16 boating fatalities in the 2023 calendar year. Most boating fatalities are drownings that occur after unexpected incidents result in persons being thrown overboard. Over the six years from 2018 to 2023, 68 people drowned or were presumed to have drowned in marine incidents involving recreational vessels in Queensland. Only five were known to have been wearing a life jacket.
MSQ’s website has more information on speed limits and life jackets.
Maritime Safety Queensland general manager Kell Dillon said, “Boaties need to clearly understand the message that speeding is dangerous on the water, just as it is on the roads. It is particularly dangerous when waterways are more congested, such as during the holidays, because speeding reduces a skipper’s decision-making time to avoid incidents.”
“And we cannot emphasise enough that life jackets are the seatbelts of the sea. It is seriously concerning that Maritime Safety Queensland’s Maritime Enforcement Team found an alarmingly high rate of unsafe behaviours out on our busiest waterways during summer. Having two in every three intercepted boaties doing the wrong thing is simply unsustainable from a safety point of view.”
“It is particularly disappointing that speeding and life jacket offences continue to feature prominently. So, I say to boaties, please slow down, wear your life jacket and make sure everyone else does too. If you end up in the water and you’re not wearing your life jacket, it can’t save you.”
