- Personal water craft (PWC) focus of new campaign
calling out bad behaviour
- PWC operators offending at nearly four times the
rate of other WA skippers
- Excessive speed data prompts warning to 'Cool
your jets'
Badly behaved personal water
craft (PWC) hoons are the target of a new safety education campaign this summer
after statistics revealed they are offending at nearly four times the rate of
other skippers in Western Australia.
Despite accounting for
only 9.1 per cent of the registered recreational fleet in WA, PWC operators were
responsible for 33.9 per cent of all offences in 2023-24. Further analysis of
the data shows that a PWC is 3.7 times more likely to attract an offence than another
registered vessel.
Hooning has been
identified as a major problem with a record number of fines and warnings issued
to PWC for excessive speed on the water last year accounting for 512 or more
than 40 per cent of the total 1,191 infringements and cautions issued to
operators of the craft.
In response, the
Department of Transport (DoT) has adapted a Victorian safety education campaign
for use in WA during the summer holiday period with the main message to PWC
operators: 'Cool your jets'.
The video campaign,
fronted by safe boating ambassador David Mundy, highlights the need for PWC
operators to have their Recreational Skipper's Ticket, slow down, be courteous
and only freestyle in approved areas, wear their lifejacket and ensure others
onboard do also.
It also supports and
builds on the work of DoT officers who are out patrolling our waterways
educating skippers and reinforcing the rules.
There
has been a rapid rise in the use of PWCs in WA in recent years, with the number
of craft registered growing from 7,039 in 2019-20 to 9,388 in 2023-24, rising
from 7.1 per cent to 9.1 per cent of the State's total number of registered
recreational vessels (102,830).
On
WA waterways there were two fatalities involving PWC use in the last eight
years - a period that claimed a total of 61 lives in on-water incidents, three
more than the previous 13 years.
Over the past 10 years the average number of deaths per year
increased to 7.1, significantly up on the previous ten-year average of 4.7.
To view the campaign or
for more information about the use of PWC in WA visit https://www.transport.wa.gov.au/imarine/personal-watercraft.asp
Comments attributed to Minister Assisting the Transport Minister David
Michael:
"This is a very concerning long-term trend, where PWC account for a
disproportionate level of offences on the water and while some operators do the
right thing, clearly many are not.
"Encouragingly, DoT has already been working closely with peak
organisations to address the bad behaviour of operators resulting in a slight
decline in PWC offences from 35.7 per cent in 2022-23 to 33.9 per cent in the
past year.
"The new safety campaign will bolster these efforts and support our
safety compliance patrols by capturing and educating a larger audience of users
to change behaviours and further decrease the unacceptable offence rates for
this type of craft.
"We're putting PWC operators on notice this summer, telling them to slow
down, do the right thing and share our waterways safely.
"Skippers navigating
dangerously or under the influence of drugs or alcohol face significantly
higher penalties this summer following the successful passage of new laws
through State Parliament."
