| Topic: | Rower fatalities | |
| Posted by: | Nigel Moore | |
| Date/Time: | 14/03/10 19:49:00 |
| A postscript to the previous posting regarding the safety of rowers on the Thames. While no-one should ever underestimate the dangers of venturing onto the tideway and should accord it all due respect while ensuring that the rules and regulations are known and practised, there have been very few actual fatalities that I know of in the past few years. The ARA compiles extensive incident records which it does not necessarily share with the authorities, but I'd have thought reporting deaths would be obligatory? According to the Marine Accident Investigation Branch, there were 2 deaths on the Thames between 2005 to 2008 – both of which involved Commercial passenger vessels while tied to piers. One was a would be passenger waiting to board who was killed by a flying bollard, the other a tipsy passenger falling into the gap between boat and pier while attempting to disembark. Neither of them were rowers so far as the record discloses. So statistically, it appears that the greatest fatality risk existing on the Thames is to be a passenger on a Class V commercial cruiser – not rowing, despite any assertions to the contrary. Difficult, I imagine, for even these genuinely at-risk individuals to campaign against increased freight use, seeing that they also are using commercial vessels and especially as both fatal incidents involved moored vessels. |