A SPATE of summer tragedies on our waterways in recent years has shown the need for safety when using vessels.
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![Splash needed to unify lifejacket regulations Splash needed to unify lifejacket regulations](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/XJLgPnEdnKaFugZzKyL6Sw/66e5ae68-f93c-4b62-babe-2b2c122d77a2.jpg/r59_856_817_1817_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
The most important personal device to avoid drowning is a lifejacket.
Sadly, as the NSW Roads and Freight Minister Duncan Gay notes in the introduction to Roads & Martime's boating handbook, a lack of lifejackets has been fatal all too often.
"The figures are damning – when you think nine out of ten people who drowned on NSW waterways were not wearing a lifejacket, it shows how critical it is to make sure you have lifejackets for everyone on board," Mr Gay wrote.
Such concern is laudable, but there also needs to be questions about why NSW does not simply tighten its life jacket laws to the level of Victoria.
South of the Murray River, if you're in a boat less than 4.8-metres long it is compulsory for all people to don lifejackets when the vessel is operating.
In NSW, if you're in the same type of vessel on enclosed waterways there are differences in lifejacket requirements.
You have to wear one at night, offshore, or on alpine waters, and when boating alone.
It also compulsory for children under 12 at all times.
It would be much easier for boat owners if the laws were identical, so they did not have to think twice.
Of course there are already requirements to have adequate lifejackets stowed aboard.
But the differences in regulations surrounding their wearing seem pointless when conditions are not that different between say the Murray River and the Kiewa River.
For Border residents it is another example of the anomalies which impinge on day-to-day life.
As authorities on both sides of the Murray have pointed out, lifejackets are no longer the cumbersome artefacts of yesteryear.
They are relatively unrestrictive for those pursuing activities such as fishing.
That being the case it makes you wonder why they don't just become compulsory in all operating conditions in NSW.
They are effectively a form of insurance which can negate the tragic legacies that come with boating fatalities.
The community and more importantly families can pay a heavy price for those who drown in scenarios where they would have been saved by a lifejacket.
It is infinitely better to be united in rules than in grief.