VSC DATA COLLECTION William S. Griswold Presentation Agenda 1 USCG Strategic Plan 2 NASBLA Work Group 3 Project purpose 4 Results to date 5 Q&A 2 STRATEGIC PLAN of the National Recreational Boating Safety Program 2012-2016 Objective 8: Operator Compliance – USCG Required Safety Equipment Increase compliance levels for specific required safety equipment on recreational boats. Strategy 8.1 – Evaluate Incidents of Non-Compliance with specific USCG Required Safety Equipment NASBLA Engineering, Reporting & Analysis Committee (ERAC) Charge C-3: Conduct an analysis of data derived from the United Safe Boating Institute (and affiliated organizations) efforts to capture Vessel Safety Check (VSC) data to determine what meaningful trends can be identified from the initial data collection. [National RBS Plan Performance Goal for reducing casualties; RBS Obj. 8, Operator Compliance-Required Safety Equipment; NASBLA’s strategic goal of conducting research for evaluating RBS program efforts and informing decision makers.] 4 Purpose of the VSC Data Collection Project Make better use of data from the VSC Process 5 USBI – United Safe Boating Institute • Undertook project, funded by CG grant & Involving two parent organizations: – USCG Auxiliary – United States Power Squadrons (USPS) 6 Determine Why Vessels Fail VSCs CG Aux in CY 12 - 119,987 vessel exams 98,408 passed (74.5%) 30,579 FAILED Compare with Accident Data Correlations ? Trends? Regional Differences? Archive for Other Future Uses Incorporate in future data collection systems 7 • AUXDATA is on life support • No funds to change VSC collection • Trial run 10 years ago – not possible • Why USBI? • Represents both CGAux & USPS • Has an existing web site for collection 8 • Gather only important information • Only need info from exams that FAILED • No personal information, but some other info that’s already captured on form 7012 9 Form 7012 Used by both USPS & CGAux 10 Auxiliary Examiners • Will be asked to complete their VSCs as always • For those vessels that fail, the examiner will go to the web page at http://www.usbi.org/vsc.php and enter the reasons the vessel failed 11 12 USPS EXAMINER AT WORK 13 USPS Vessel Examiners • Will be asked to complete their VSCs with the additional data asked for • The Squadron VSC Chairs will enter the VSC data on a newly designed USPS input page rather than the existing page • This data will be passed to the USBI database to be merged with the Auxiliary data MEASUREMENT • To see if this pilot program is capturing significant data, we can compare number of VSC failures in each state between AUXDATA and the Pilot Program • This measurement might help future changes 15 ANALYSIS – so far Data collected is up to end of 2012 Hurricane Sandy flooded CGAux host equipment Oct. 29, shutting down web site for 2 months USPS data intact – National input from most states CGAux data incomplete – mainly from 5 test states – MI, MO, NC, TX & WA + 4 – FL, IL, MD, WY TOTAL FAILED EXAMS – 3,592 16 Focusing on 5 reasons which could cause an accident, reports show % of total failures: • Fire Extinguishers 18% • Life Jackets 8% • Navigation Lights 8% • Visual Distress Signals 6% • Sound Device 3% Notes: An examination may result in a failure for more than one reason These differences are statistically significant 17 Probability of Failure: • • • • • Fire Extinguishers Life Jackets Navigation Lights Visual Distress Signals Sound Device 30% 13% 13% 10% 6% 18 USPS – 44 States + Washington DC + Puerto Rico 3119 failed VSC’s with 5,398 reasons failed CGAux – 5 pilot states + 4 others 471 failed VSC’s with 778 reasons failed Overall average 1.7 items failed per exam 19 Summary table of failures 5 out of a possible 15 failure categories Reason for Failure CGAux Failures CGAux % of Fail. USPS Failures USPS % of Fail. Total Failures % of Total Failures PFD 30 4% 461 8% 491 4% VDS 176 23 % 200 4% 376 6% Fire Ext. 73 9% 1,027 19 % 1,100 18 % Sound 55 7% 154 3% 209 3% Nav Lts. 156 20 % 332 6% 488 8% TOTAL of 778 All 15 categories 5,398 6,176 20 Differences in failure probability by organization 21 • Possible reasons for differences in failure patterns – Lack of consistency in criteria used by each organization – Differences in boat populations being examined by the two organizations (locations, size of boats, other) 22 VISUAL DISTRESS SIGNALS (VDS) • CGAux reported 176 VDS failures – 31% were on Inland Waters • USPS reported 200 VDS failures – 52% were on Inland Waters • Some concern about Federal requirements, State requirements on Inland Waters and Vessel Examiners getting it right 23 Other Interesting Facts • 55% of USPS “Pollution Placard” failures were on vessels <26 feet – not a Fed. Requirement • 75 (2%) of total reported failures (3590) had no failures, VSC was passed • Florida had the highest # failures – 12%, Ohio and Michigan had 11% each • These three states had 34% of the reported failures , 18% of registered boats, and 21% of reported boating accidents 24 Location Area CGAux USPS TOTAL Coastal 190 1,265 1,455 % of TOTAL 41% Inland 258 1,743 2,001 56% River 23 111 134 4% TOTAL 471 3,119 3,590 25 SIZE OF VESSEL Length CGAux USPS TOTAL % OF TOTAL Unknown <16 Feet 25 Feet 0 114 263 6 414 1,419 6 528 1,682 0 15 47 39 Feet 65 Feet >65 Feet 75 14 5 971 309 0 1,046 323 5 29 9 0 TOTAL 471 3,119 3,590 26 PROBILITY OF FAILURE BY LENGTH Type | Under 25’ | Over 25’ | TOTAL Number Probability Number Probability Number Probability 1352 .6098 959 .6980 2311 .6436 Fire Ext 606 .2733 493 .3588 1099 .3060 Lights 321 .1448 167 .1215 488 .1359 PFD 312 .1407 146 .1063 458 .1275 VDS 263 .1186 113 .0822 376 .1047 Sound 129 .0582 80 .0582 209 .0582 Other 27 And in Conclusion • This project is a long term wish to use VSC’s as a vehicle to determine why boats fail, where they are and what they don’t have on board • Perhaps, we can correlate carriage deficiencies with boating accidents • Other data bases have not been able to tell us why; maybe our method will help direct our educational efforts, and public awareness initiatives 28 Check Us Out http://www.usbi.org/ We are glad to be partners with NASBLA NSBC NWSC If you have any questions, please contact us wsgriz@aol.com 29 Q & A time 30