[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 192 (Tuesday, October 5, 1999)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 53971-53973]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 99-25864]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Coast Guard

33 CFR Part 175

[USCG-1999-6219]


Recreational Boating Safety--Federal Requirements for Wearing 
Personal Flotation Devices

AGENCY: Coast Guard, DOT.

ACTION: Notice; request for comments.

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SUMMARY: The Coast Guard seeks (we seek) comments from interested 
people, groups, and businesses about the need for, and possible 
alternatives to, Federal requirements or incentives for people to wear 
lifejackets while engaged in a limited number of specific boating 
activities on the water. We will consider all comments and consult 
further with the National Boating Safety Advisory Council (NBSAC) to 
determine whether we should propose any Federal rules that would help 
to reduce the number of recreational boaters who drown in the 
circumstances identified by this notice and by the comments to it.

DATES: Comments and related material must reach the Docket Management 
Facility on or before April 3, 2000.

ADDRESSES: To make sure your comments and related material (referred to 
USCG-1999-6219) are not entered more than once in the docket, please 
submit them by only one of the following means:
    (1) By mail to the Docket Management Facility, U.S. Department of 
Transportation, room PL-401, 400 Seventh Street SW., Washington, DC 
20590-0001.
    (2) By hand delivery to room PL-401 on the Plaza level of the 
Nassif Building, 400 Seventh Street S.W., Washington, DC, between 9 
a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. The 
telephone number is 202-366-9329.
    (3) By fax to the Docket Management Facility at 202-493-2251.
    (4) Electronically through the Web Site for the Docket Management 
System at http://dms.dot.gov.
    The Docket Management Facility maintains the public docket for this 
notice. Comments and material received from the public, as well as 
documents mentioned in this preamble as being available in the docket, 
will become part of this docket and will be available for inspection or 
copying at room PL-401 on the Plaza level of the Nassif Building, at 
the same address between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, 
except Federal holidays. You may also find this docket on the Internet 
at http://dms.dot.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For questions on this notice, contact 
Carlton Perry, Project Manager, Office of Boating Safety, by telephone 
at 202-267-0979 or by e-mail at [email protected]. For questions on 
viewing or submitting material to the docket, call Dorothy Walker, 
Chief, Dockets, Department of Transportation, telephone 202-366-9329.
    You may obtain a copy of this notice by calling the U.S. Coast 
Guard Infoline at 1-800-368-5647, or read it on the Internet at the Web 
Site for the Office of Boating Safety at http://www.uscgboating.org or 
at http://dms.dot.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Regulatory History

    On September 25, 1997, we published in the Federal Register a 
notice of request for comments [62 FR 50280]. That notice, with the 
title ``Recreational Boating Safety--Federal Requirements for Wearing 
Personal Flotation Devices'', under docket number CGD 97-059, set the 
closing date for comments for February 2, 1998. On March 20, 1998, we 
published a second notice [63 FR 13586]. That notice, with the same 
title and under the same docket number, reopened the comment period 
until May 29, 1998.

Background and Purpose

    A number of responses to the initial notice commented that the best 
way to prevent drowning was to keep people from falling into the water 
in the first place. Our review of data on recreational boating 
accidents indicates

[[Page 53972]]

that most people who drowned had ended up in the water unexpectedly and 
were not able to put on lifejackets during the incidents. Federal 
requirements to prevent unexpected falls overboard would unreasonably 
restrict moving about on the vessel and would also likely interfere 
with operating the vessel. We believe that the best way to minimize the 
number of deaths due to drowning is to maximize the number of 
recreational boaters wearing lifejackets, also known as personal 
flotation devices (PFDs). Each year we sponsor a national campaign for 
boating safety based on educational methods aimed at encouraging 
recreational boaters to wear lifejackets. We also recognize, however, 
that these nonregulatory methods of modifying behavior have not been 
successful enough.
    When we published the initial notice, we sought public comment on 
the need for Federal requirements that any or all recreational boaters 
wear lifejackets. The request asked the public to identify the various 
conditions under which the use of lifejackets should be mandatory or 
optional, or would be inappropriate.
    We received over 600 written comments in response to the initial 
notice. Most of them opposed any Federal requirements that all boaters 
wear lifejackets all the time. However, almost 120 of them supported 
Federal or State PFD requirements for at least some categories of 
recreational vessels, boaters, or activities.
    After summarizing the comments (copy in the public docket for this 
notice), we consulted with NBSAC at its meetings in October 1998 and 
April 1999 regarding the results. The Council recommended that we 
publish another notice of request for comments, one that would focus 
more on the need to propose rules calling for mandatory wear for 
children, for operators of Personal Watercraft (PWC), and for people 
being towed behind recreational vessels.
    We have considered the recommendations of NBSAC (also in the public 
docket for this notice), the comments we received in response to the 
initial notice, and drowning statistics from reports on recreational 
boating accidents. In this notice, we are again inviting comments from 
the public, but only targeting vessels less than 16 feet in length, 
which should include specific groups of high-risk recreational vessels, 
boaters, and activities.
    Recreational boating has grown dramatically over the last 20 years. 
Over those years, there have been fewer and fewer deaths, thanks in 
part to ongoing educational efforts like the Federal and State 
Recreational Boating Safety Programs. Unfortunately, recreational 
boating accidents still result in more deaths than all other 
transportation-related accidents, except for motor vehicle accidents.
    Most people who die in recreational boating accidents drown. During 
1997, our data show, recreational boating accidents resulted in over 
800 deaths, 588 of them by drowning. Of the 588 victims, most (523) 
were not wearing lifejackets. Although 65 victims also drowned while 
wearing them, information in the accident reports suggest that other 
factors contributed to or even were the primary cause of death for most 
of these 65. Many of the 588 might have survived if they had worn 
lifejackets.
    During 1997, vessels less than 16 feet in length accounted for 385 
deaths, 293 by drowning, and vessels at least 16 feet in length, but 
less than 26 feet in length, accounted for 294 deaths, 192 by drowning. 
Also, during 1997, open motorboats accounted for 413 deaths, 307 by 
drowning, and PWC accounted for another 84 deaths, 22 by drowning. 
Sadly, during 1997, 25 children 12 years of age and under died in the 
water, 14 by drowning.

Request for Comments

    We encourage you to participate in this project by submitting 
comments and related material about the need for, or alternatives to, 
Federal requirements and incentives for recreational boaters to wear 
lifejackets under the specific circumstances listed in this notice. We 
emphasize that we are not contemplating such requirements or incentives 
for commercial vessels, for larger recreational vessels, or for all 
recreational boaters under all circumstances. We encourage you to 
answer all of the following questions. We even encourage you to provide 
information on any subject related to those questions if you feel your 
comment addresses an issue we need to consider. We also solicit 
comments from all segments of the recreational boating community, from 
State boating safety authorities, from NBSAC, from the National 
Association of State Boating Law Administrators (NASBLA), and from 
other interested people, groups, and businesses, large or small, on the 
economic or other effects of any such requirements or incentives.
    If you submit comments, please include your name and address, 
identify the docket number for this notice (USCG-1999-6219), indicate 
the specific section of this document to which each comment applies, 
and give the reason for each comment. You may submit your comments and 
material by mail, hand delivery, fax, or electronic means to the Docket 
Management Facility at the address under ADDRESSES; but please submit 
your comments and material by only one means. If you submit them by 
mail or hand delivery, submit them in an unbound format, no larger than 
8\1/2\ by 11 inches, suitable for copying and electronic filing. If you 
submit them by mail and would like to know they reached the Facility, 
please enclose a stamped, self-addressed postcard or envelope.
    We will summarize all the comments we receive during the comment 
period, place a copy of the summary in the public docket, and provide 
copies to the members of NBSAC for them to consider at their next 
meeting. We will consider all relevant comments and material received 
during the comment period in drafting any regulatory or nonregulatory 
measures that may follow from this notice.

Public Meeting

    We do not plan to hold a public meeting. But you may submit a 
request for one to the Docket Management Facility at the address under 
ADDRESSES explaining why one would be beneficial. If we determine that 
one would aid this project, we will hold one at a time and place 
announced by a later notice in the Federal Register.
    Please consider and respond to the following questions:
    1. Several States have imposed various requirements for wearing 
lifejackets--by children, during water-skiing, aboard PWC, canoes and 
kayaks, and sailboards, and so on. Should we continue to let individual 
States determine their own requirements for wearing lifejackets? Or 
should we propose Federal rules to--
    a. Ensure that, if States do issue requirements for wearing 
lifejackets, those requirements be consistent with one another?
    b. Preempt the several States from issuing any such requirements at 
all?
    c. Apply only on those navigable waters where no State has issued 
requirements for wearing lifejackets?
    2. Should we propose Federal rules requiring that any or all of the 
following recreational boaters wear lifejackets while underway? If so, 
which?
    a. Any child under 13 years of age, or under some other age?
    b. Any boater on a recreational vessel less than 16 feet in length, 
less than 20 feet in length, or some other length?
    c. Any boater on a specific type of recreational vessel, such as an 
open motorboat, a PWC, a sailboat, a

[[Page 53973]]

sailboard, a rowboat, a canoe, or a kayak?
    d. Any person being towed behind a recreational vessel on water 
skis, on an inflatable raft or tube, or on some other device?
    e. Any boater who is the sole occupant of a recreational vessel? If 
so, should the rule not apply when a vessel capable of rendering 
assistance accompanies the first vessel?
    f. Any boater on a recreational vessel operating either in certain 
water or weather--such as fast currents, white water, high tides, cold 
weather, or gale-force winds--or where the recreational vessel is, or 
could drift to, more than a given distance from land.
    g. Any boater on a recreational vessel defined by a specific 
combination of the boater's age, the vessel's type and size, its 
operation, and the prevailing water or weather?
    3. Should we propose any Federal rules that allow alternatives to 
wearing Coast Guard approved lifejackets? If so, which alternatives? 
And if so, for which vessels, activities, water or weather, or boaters?
    4. Please describe any nonregulatory ways to reduce the number of 
deaths by drowning, that are achievable at lower cost or with less 
burden than by Federal rules for wearing lifejackets.

    Dated: September 28, 1999.
Terry M. Cross,
Rear Admiral, U.S. Coast Guard, Acting Assistant Commandant for 
Operations.
[FR Doc. 99-25864 Filed 10-4-99; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-15-P