With 18, Wis. Ties Boating Fatalities From 2010

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) -- Wisconsin has already matched the 18 watercraft-related deaths reported last year, according to information from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and the summer isn't even over.

Many of the deaths remain under investigation, but officials said it was clear that speed and alcohol use contributed to many fatal accidents and that life jackets could have saved some lives.

"If people were wearing life jackets when they were boating, we could probably cut these fatalities down by 75 percent," Jeremy Cords, recreational safety warden for the DNR's northeast region, told the Green Bay Press-Gazette.

Boaters are required to have life jackets on board for all passengers, Cords said. However, passengers are not required to wear them.

"It's one thing to have them in the boat, but they aren't going to do you any good at all unless they're on you," he said.

According to a U.S. Coast Guard report, nearly 75 percent of the 672 victims in 2010 fatal boating accidents drowned, and of those, 88 percent were not reported as wearing a life jacket.

Cords said speeding was the top cause of deaths. "If you took speed out of the scenario, people would have time to react. People would have time to avoid those collisions," he said.

Alcohol use was confirmed in a third of this year's fatal incidents, and ruled out in three. Nine cases are still under investigation. Last year, alcohol was involved in 22 percent of the fatal boating accidents.

Mike Anderson, director of the Cape Cod, Mass.-based American Boating Association, said that alcohol use by a passenger on a boat can be deadly.

"It's not like you're standing on a deck in the backyard having a couple of beers. You're standing on a moving platform. It's shifting with the waves, it's going fast and it's turning," Anderson said.

Wisconsin requires anyone born after 1988 to take a safety course to legally operate a boat.

Cords said he expects that law to lead to fewer deaths, but, "it may take another five to 10 years before we start to see and notice a decrease."

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