These small watercraft, similar to snowmobiles, usually seat one or more passengers and travel at high speeds. The recommendation follows recent statistics showing a dramatic increase in injury and death resulting from PWC use. Fatalities associated with PWC usage are not the result of drowning as in most other boating incidents, but due to blunt trauma after a collision.
Collisions occur with other PWCs, boats, or fixed objects like a dock or tree stump.
When drownings do occur, it is usually because the victim is not wearing a proper personal floatation device. In 1995, nearly 12,000 people were treated in hospital emergency rooms following PWC incidents, according to data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System. These data represents a four-fold increase from 1990, when 2,860 injuries were reported. The U.S. Coast Guard reported 57 PWC-related deaths in 1996, as compared with just five in 1987. While injuries continue to rise, so do PWC sales.