Boating Accidents

Whether a person is hurt on a jet ski or personal watercraft or injured in a “fishing boat” or “diving boat”, or “privately-owned boat” “motorboat or sailboat”, Coffey McPharlin has been involved in handling these kinds of claims to obtains recoveries for our clients.

Personal Watercraft and Jet Ski Accidents Jet ski and other personal watercraft accidents that often result in serious injuries or even death occur – with alarming frequency – to vacationers and inexperienced users in the State of Florida. The best way to avoid a jet ski or personal watercraft accident is through knowledge of how the vehicle performs and the practice of situational awareness (location of hazards like rocks, bridges, docks, the effect of tides/currents, and the actions of other people on the water). Safe operation requires you to try to anticipate what could happen next in order to avoid getting yourself into a potentially dangerous situation. Things happen very quickly on the water, and distances are often-times hard to judge, especially for the inexperienced operator. Personal watercraft accidents often occur when the operator borrows or rents a jet ski without receiving adequate instructions on how to safely operate the vehicle or what to do in the event of an emergency. Education about the risks associated with jet skis can substantially reduce your risk of being involved in a serious accident. For instance, it is important to understand that more than half of all jet ski accidents involve a collision with another vessel. Accidents can result from various scenarios, such as two jet skis approaching each other where the closing rate is effectively twice the top speed of either jet ski if both operators are at full throttle (a closing rate of 130 mph results from two jets racing towards each other at 65 mph), or a failure to understand that a jet ski takes a considerable distance to stop once power is cut, leaving the jet ski operator’s ability to steer the craft sharply reduced.

We Handle All Boating Accident Claims

Certain maneuvers are against the law in most states because of the inherent risk of injury. In most states it is illegal to: Make sharp turns near another vessel, jump another vessel’s wake within 100 feet of that or any other vessel, follow a boat too closely, and chase another jet ski in small circles. It should go without saying that the operation of a jet ski while under the influence of alcohol, or while otherwise impaired, is especially dangerous. Individuals are regularly arrested for boating or operating a jet ski while intoxicated. Some people seem to believe that it is acceptable to drink and drive a boat or watercraft, but it is not. These types of activities, combined with inexperience and inattention, can result in serious or fatal accidents.