Personal Watercraft Incident Court Decisions: The Plaintiff’s Odds?

Eui-Yul Choi and Woo Jeong Cho
Additional contact information
Eui-Yul Choi: Department of Marine Sport Sciences, College of Ocean Science and Engineering, Korea Maritime & Ocean University, 727 Taejong-Ro, Yeongdo-Gu, Busan 49112, Korea
Woo Jeong Cho: Department of Marine Sport Sciences, College of Ocean Science and Engineering, Korea Maritime & Ocean University, 727 Taejong-Ro, Yeongdo-Gu, Busan 49112, Korea

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 9, 1-10

Abstract: A personal watercraft (PWC) is a vessel that uses an inboard motor powering a water jet pump as a source of power and is operated by a person sitting, standing, or kneeling. Maneuvering a PWC is different from operating a motor vehicle or boat. An obstacle cannot be avoided by slowing down and turning the watercraft; throttle power is required to turn or maneuver the PWC. The watercraft stops only by drifting or turning sharply. The study examined sixty court decisions published in LexisNexis databases of the United States over the last decade. Cases included individuals injured while operating a PWC as a driver, passenger, or as a result of contact with a watercraft. A content analysis identified items to be used in the study. Crosstab and logistic regression analyses were used to identify demographic information and the characteristics of those who succeeded in a court of law. One-third of the cases were successful; adults, males, and the party who sustained a severe injury were more successful in a court of law with the exception of the statistically significant factors (high risk maneuvers and sharp turns). Among the additional results, we should be aware that insurance companies may not pay; additionally, it is unwise to loan a PWC to a female who has no experience.

Keywords: personal watercraft; jet ski; incident; injury; court decision (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/9/5096/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/9/5096/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:9:p:5096-:d:547752

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().