State to try again for children's life jacket law

There's a conundrum on Smith Mountain Lake. You can be cited by one agency for having a child on board without a life preserver, but another agency won't cite you.

Because Smith Mountain Lake is a federal waterway, both the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and the U.S. Coast Guard have jurisdiction.

When it comes to children in life preservers, VDGIF upholds the state law, which requires there be a properly sized life preserver on board. The Coast Guard upholds the federal law, which requires all children age 12 and under to wear life preservers when the vessel is underway. There are exceptions when the children are below deck or in an enclosed cabin.

"If the DGIF approaches your boat and there's an 8-year-old with no life jacket on, you won't get a ticket," said Del. Brenda Pogge, R-Yorktown. "If the Coast Guard comes five minutes later, you'll get a ticket."

Pogge said she is looking to change that by introducing a bill this month that would bring the state law into conformity with the federal law. Similar bills have been killed in committee in the past several years.

Pogge said House Bill 1250 will be very similar to the bill introduced last year, with only two major changes. One is that it will affect all boats, regardless of length. Last year's bill would have applied to only vessels under 26 feet.

The second change is that the law would only apply to waterways where VDGIF and the Coast Guard have concurrent jurisdiction, including Smith Mountain Lake, Leesville Lake, Lake Gaston, Claytor Lake and Buggs Island Lake.

"These are public and this wouldn't apply to anyone's private lake or private pond," said Pogge.

Bruce Dungan, Smith Mountain Lake resident and chairman of the Virginia Safe Boating Alliance, said it's high time a bill such as Pogge's gets passed because adults need to protect children's safety, even if the children are able swimmers.

"Both of my daughters started swimming competitively at the age of 6," said Dungan. "But neither one of them could swim worth a darn while unconscious."

Charlie Sledd, VDGIF's state boating law administrator, said 90 percent of boating fatalities are drownings.

"Somewhere around 80 percent of those drowning fatalities probably could have been avoided if folks were wearing a life jacket," he said.

Safe Kids USA published a study in 2004 reporting that 97 percent of children who drown on the open water are not wearing life preservers.

Sledd said he's certain that a life preserver law for children would help lower the number of drownings based on studies, statistics and other laws.

"Almost since day one, Virginia and every other state has required PWC riders to wear a life jacket," said Sledd. "You don't see a lot of fatalities from drowning relative to PWC accidents. The fatalities you have from PWCs are generally from some sort of trauma."

Pogge, a mother of five and grandmother of three, said she hopes this will be the year the children's life preserver bill gets made into law.

"I'm going to go around and try to lobby folks," she said. "It's time to have consistency across the state."