Staying Afloat on Boating Safety as the Summer Season Shoves Off

With Memorial Day weekend just around the corner plenty of people will be taking their summer fun out on the water. But that fun can lead to accidents without the right safety measures. After 15 years of boating, Shannon Williams knows the ways of the water. "It`s not like driving a car, you can`t stop, you just watch for people," Williams said. "I`m driving a big old barge, so you kind of stay away from the speedboats." Looking at his family it`s easy to see that his first rule of safety is that everyone wears a life jacket. "Yeah, you can`t get on it it without a life jacket. I have a lot of friends that want to get on, but I tell them you`ve got to have a lifejacket," he says. In 2003, Arkansas had 62 boating accidents, six of them were fatal. That`s decreased from 2002, where 25 out of 96 accidents were fatal. In many cases, a life jacket would have made all the difference. "A lot of accidents we have we find people floating in the water that drowned and we find the life jacket floating right beside them," said Steve "Wildman" Wilson, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Kids 12 and under are required by Arkansas law to wear a life jacket that fits. But jackets are only one way to stay afloat. Complete safety requires common sense. "Booze and boats don`t mix," said Wilson. He reminds boaters to maintain a safe speed to avoid collision, know where you are and where you`re goin in your boat, and most important, pay attention. "Just not looking around them, running into other boats, dikes out in the water, just watching," Wilson says is the type of inattention that is the main cause of accidents. Boaters are also advised to take boating education courses--anyone born after 1986 is required to take the course before operating a boat. For information on safety measures or Boating Safety Week you can click on the following links: www.uscgboating.org www.agfc.com Or call the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission Boating Education line at 877-493-6424.