The Effects of Boating Safety Regulations

This article investigates the effects of boater education programs and an increase in the number of water patrol officers on the prevention of recreational boating accidents. The empirical study, which estimates a reduced-form model similar to those used in the automobile safety literature, analyzes data on boating accidents that occurred in 1994 from 49 states and the District of Columbia. Model simulations, based on empirical estimates from Poisson and negative binomial models, suggest that a uniform law-enforcement policy of one-and-a-half water patrol officers per 1,000 boaters would prevent between 2,229 (negative binomial) and 2,318 (Poisson) accidents in 44 states.