Alcohol and Watercraft Injuries in the Great Lake States: Who Is the Intoxicated Boater, and What Are They Doing to Our Waterways?

Abstract

Numerous studies have shown the deleterious effects of mixing alcohol and boating. Despite this, alcohol use while boating still appears to be very prevalent in the Great Lakes states. The behavior characteristics common to boaters who choose to drink versus boaters who apply sober boating practices are not documented in the medical literature. The purpose of this study is to examine the epidemiology of documented boating accidents in the Great Lakes states from 2002 to 2011. The data will be used to evaluate the behaviors of intoxicated boaters, and determine who is at risk and what interventions can be done to make our waterways safer. This is a retrospective analysis performed on reported boating accidents that occurred in the Great Lake States from 2002 to 2011. Data were gathered from publicly available resources including the United States Coast Guard Boating Accident Report database and the Department of Natural Resources. Overall, there were 1290 accidents involving 1472 vessels with 270 fatalities reported in our analysis. Descriptive statistics are reported using χ2 and Fisher exact tests to assess our endpoints previously described. Comparing the intoxicated boater to the sober boater at the time of accident shows that intoxicated boaters are more likely to use illicit drugs than the sober boater (17.8% vs 0.3%), less likely to wear a personal flotation device (71.2% vs 47.9%), more likely to get into accidents at excessive speeds (10% vs 1.7%), actually had more boater experience (54.1% vs 42.2% had more than 100 hours of boater experience) but had less formal boater education (65.5% vs 77.9%), had more people on board (16% vs 11.8% had more than 4 on board), and were more likely to die secondary to trauma (30.5% vs 13.3%). Intoxicated boaters were also more likely to be boating, swimming, or cruising at the time of the accident. By identifying which boaters are most likely to cause significant accidents and fatalities, we can work to make our waterways safer. We advocate increased fines and penalties for boaters caught operating or riding in a boat while intoxicated, increased monitoring for intoxicated boaters, and increased educational and remediation programs. Given the results of this paper, we believe that monitoring boaters and enforcing the law on our waterways should be done more effectively so that our limited resources can be better utilized.