96% of EPIRB Alerts false

[sailaway21]

Sounded like a good idea at the time. How's it working out? Not so well if you consider Coast Guard resources and your tax dollars. Sounds like having is different from owning, maintaining, and operating. I might have titled the thread, How to make a good safety device useless. Details:

PdfMeNot.com - a nicer way of linking to PDFs

[nolatom]

Wow. Looks like most of them are because the bracket didn't prevent accidental activation. Can you imagine if 96% of 911 calls to a typical police department were "mistakes", or otherwise nonevents?

[sailaway21]

Exactly my thoughts, Tom. Any type of alarm system is only as good as it's reliability in sending accurate signals. If your gauges and check engine lights were continually sending incorrect warnings you'd soon ignore them or not pull over as soon as you might otherwise when one came up. The relevant analogies to EPIRB's are obvious.

[gtod25]

Or do you agree with the authors of the report that;

"Several small corrective steps will make a positive difference in this problem".

[gtod25]

Originally Posted by sailaway21

If your gauges and check engine lights were continually sending incorrect warnings you'd soon ignore them or not pull over as soon as you might otherwise when one came up.

Or you might even fix the problem with the gauges and check engine lights.

[btrayfors]

The overwhelming number of false alerts that were traced were do to poor bracket design. The designs (across all U.S. manufacturers) of these brackets do not meet the established standards.

IMHO, the manufacturers should be held accountable, and required to design and produce a better bracket which meets the standards. They charge an arm and a leg for these relatively simple devices; they need to clean up their act.

Also, an educational campaign by the USCG, Auxiliaries, NOAA, BoatUS, and other large organizations on the storage, use, checking of EPIRBs would likely help avoid much user error. For example, few sailors putting EPIRBs in their ditch bags know that they must be kept dry, else they will activate inadvertently.

EPIRBs save a lot of lives. We've got to be careful not to throw out the baby with the bath.

Bill

[sailingdog]

This is one major reason I opted to get a manually activated EPIRB, rather than an automatic one. IIRC, the one I have won't do jack unless you flip the trigger.

[sailaway21]

One would think that the USCG would be all over this. One can only wonder at how they evaluate fact from fiction. Actually, I'd rather not. Any decrease in the believability of valid warnings is unacceptable for such a system. And apparently an awful big waste of taxpayer money. I'd assosciate myself with the comments of btrayfors.

[SEMIJim]

Originally Posted by btrayfors

The overwhelming number of false alerts that were traced were do to poor bracket design. The designs (across all U.S. manufacturers) of these brackets do not meet the established standards.

IMHO, the manufacturers should be held accountable, and required to design and produce a better bracket which meets the standards. They charge an arm and a leg for these relatively simple devices; they need to clean up their act.

Agree 100%. Couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the prices on these things.

It is an unfortunate reality, in today's world, that manufacturers will more likely produce things as cheaply as they can get away with, rather than as economically as they can and still do it right. The only way, it seems, to correct such problems is to fine and sue them into doing the right thing .

Originally Posted by btrayfors

Also, an educational campaign by the USCG, Auxiliaries, NOAA, BoatUS, and other large organizations on the storage, use, checking of EPIRBs would likely help avoid much user error. For example, few sailors putting EPIRBs in their ditch bags know that they must be kept dry, else they will activate inadvertently.

As with the manufacturers: Fine the transgressors for false alarms. Maybe they'll learn to RTFM.

I'm reminded to the annual "rescue the ice fishermen" exercises that go on around here. I think they fine those idiots, now. Which is as it should be, IMO.

Originally Posted by btrayfors

EPIRBs save a lot of lives. We've got to be careful not to throw out the baby with the bath.

Doesn't sound like anybody's suggesting the system be abandoned, but that it be fixed.

Jim