Crashes at Night

Boating crashes at night

Unfortunately boating crashes at night are commonplace now. It likely has something to do with the higher prevalence of vessels in the State of Florida. 961,266 in 2019—the last numbers released by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (“FWC”).

Also contributing to boat crashes is the fact that few boats have any form of headlights. We see that some of the newer models do but as a percentage these are very few. Also, onboard lighting creates a halo effect which actually diminishes the driver’s ability to discern channel markers and other structures.

Many channel markers are not lighted. Or if they once were lighted the lighting is not functional. Channel markers are set to withstand the forces of nature. Unfortunately striking a channel marker usually results in significant injury, and there are many instances where it causes death,

This also does not take into account vessels at night striking jetties, docks, seawalls or another vessel. Boating at night is a dangerous undertaking. This is especially true at any high rate of speed. The boating manufacturers overall have not done a good job in making their vessels more visible at night. With no headlights and many times very small navigation lights it is difficult to see other vessels on the water. We have handled many boating injury crashes which occurred at night. We recently concluded a case where one vessel t-boned and cut all the way through a second vessel. We have also handled boating crash cases where an operator has struck channel markers, vessels, and docks.

If you have a boating crash case talk to the attorneys who actually handle this type of case. We are not dog-bite attorneys. We do boating crash injury cases. You can trust our 25 years experience handling boating crash cases.

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