Officials are investigating the death of a 14-year-old American tourist who was killed in a jet ski collision on Paradise Island just weeks after parliamentarians passed a bill to strengthen regulations governing water sports.<\/p>\n
The victim, who was visiting The Bahamas from New Jersey, was riding a jet ski on Thursday afternoon when he lost control and collided with a boat, police reported yesterday.<\/p>\n
Under the new law, no one under the age of 18 is allowed to operate or rent a jet ski.<\/p>\n
The teen had suffered “serious injures” and was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital, police said.<\/p>\n
The victim’s identity has yet to be released and it has not been revealed where he was staying, but officials said they are continuing to investigate the incident.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the issue of water safety has been a hot topic of debate in recent years. <\/p>\n
In November 2004, New York resident Anthony Moretti, 44, died on Paradise Island after his jet ski collided with one driven by his 13-year-old niece.<\/p>\n
In August 2002, the two-year-old son of a British couple, Paul and Andrea Gallagher, died in hospital after being hit by a speedboat, which reportedly ran out of control while pulling a banana boat. <\/p>\n
At that time, Transport and Aviation Minister Glenys Hanna-Martin said the government assured both the British High Commissioner and officials at the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs that legislation would be enacted here to regulate the industry.<\/p>\n
In April, legislation was passed which regulated and controlled the commercial and recreational uses of watercraft throughout the country.<\/p>\n
The new legislation imposes stiff penalties on individuals who operate jet skis without licences while restricting their use to adults. These penalties range from two years in prison to a maximum fine of $5,000.<\/p>\n
Also stipulated under the legislation, both the operator and his\/her craft must be licensed and no one under 18 will be allowed to operate or rent jet skis “in and around the waters of The Bahamas.” <\/p>\n
In addition, the Bill forbids anyone from allowing a minor to operate jet skis. Violators of these provisions will be liable on summary conviction to a maximum $5,000 fine or two years in prison or both. <\/p>\n
Further, jet skis must also slow to three knots or less when moving within 200 feet of a designated shoreline, and no craft will be allowed to tow a parasail boat or banana boat without a licensed operator. Also, all jet ski operators must obtain liability insurance coverage from an authorised insurer.<\/p>\n
Another offence in the new legislation is the operation of watercraft while intoxicated or using a “controlled” substance. Violators will again be subject to a $5,000 fine or two years prison or both.<\/p>\n
Currently there are licences for 272 jet skis, 18 parasail boats, 10 banana boats and 79 non-motorised craft.<\/p>\n
By: JASMIN BONIMY, The Nassau Guardian<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A tragedy that would not have occurred if the jet ski operators had obeyed recently passed legislation which forbids anyone from allowing a minor to operate jet skis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-242668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}