by DIANE PHILLIPS

The crackdown urged by the US Embassy on jet ski safety comes as welcome news and no surprise. Kimberly Furnish, Chargé d’affaires, deserves a lot of credit for her outspoken stance and her careful, diplomatic phrasing of “Not one more needless death, not one more death, not one more assault of a US citizen woman.”

Her words came in the wake of last week’s tragedy, when 28-year-old Second Lt Robert Rosa of the Alaska Air National Guard was killed by the driver of a boat that slammed into the jet ski he had rented. The respected serviceman who had come to The Bahamas to vacation was flown home in a body bag to be buried. No wonder Ms Furnish was upset.

The latest tragedy followed several incidents earlier this year, including two separate rapes of American women in a single month – and we will never know how many more women have been raped over the years and never reported it for fear of embarrassment or obstacles related to returning to The Bahamas to testify.

This is a serious wake-up call. Wake up Bahamas. We don’t allow rough drivers to dominate the streets, ramming into vehicles without retribution, offering rides to young women who pay them to go for a tour only to be taken to a remote spot and raped. We don’t let truckers zip and speed and turn circles threatening others on the road.

It is sheer insanity in an economy based on tourism to let the same waters that attract more than 11 million visitors a year to the country become the danger zone that threatens the very safety and well-being of those visitors.

This is not an amorphous issue or something we can put off any longer. It has been brewing like a boil that won’t burst but hurts like hell for years.

I see the jet skis daily, tearing out of Montagu and a ramp off East Bay Street, scooting around Arawak Cay between Fish Fry and the wharf or the western end of PI. Not once – not once – have I ever seen Harbour Patrol or the Defence Force or RBPF pull one jet ski over for speeding in a no- or slow-wake zone, for coming in too close to a beach designated for swimmers or for reckless operation.

I see dozens of police officers on the streets stopping vehicles, doing licence, registration and insurance checks, maybe searching for weapons, ammunition or drugs. I see Immigration officers everywhere and hear of raids even if only two persons out of hundreds are found without current work permits. And never, I repeat, have I seen an officer of the law pull over a jet ski for anything. Do the rules of engagement change when a piece of equipment leaves the dock and enters the water? Does it become a free-for-all where lawlessness reigns because there is no deterrent?

Look, for all of those who operate jet skis safely, take care of your equipment and conduct yourselves legally, this is not intended for you. You should be just as angry as those who have been injured or raped or buried a family member at those who are defaming your industry.

You should be calling for an enforcement unit dedicated to water safety, resources to check every jet ski for safety vests and a commitment by the operator to obey the law or understand his license will be revoked. You should be demanding what Ms Furnish is suggesting – a full investigation and a way forward that looks very different from the past.

If we are going to continue to allow jet skis, we must stop fooling ourselves believing that the association will monitor its own and it can’t help if a rogue operator gets out of hand from time to time. If we are going to continue to allow jet skis, we must commit to the real enforcement of the law, just as we do on the streets and in our own workplaces.

We must have a system in place to check for registration, licensing, life vests and every driver should be licenced, every offender, once convicted penalized and unable to renew a licence if the offence is of a certain level.

Thank you, Ms Furnish for the wake-up call. It is time to put a halt to what I have stated before - the Wild Wild Waters of The Bahamas – but whereas I said it earlier related to the illegal taking of undersized conch, crawfish out of season and fish by foreigners for commercial gain – I say now for jet ski operations so they may continue in reputable fashion and “not one more needless death, not one more death, not one more assault of a US citizen” – or a citizen of any country, at any time in The Bahamas.