Even though I might anger some people... I often think that "licensing" recreational boat owners might not be a bad idea......
I agree with you. While I've heard all the arguments against it, and of course there is the costly bureaucracy that would have to be created to administer it, it's always seemed a bit bizzarre that a person needs training and a license to operate a plane or helicopter, training (formal or otherwise) and a license to operate a vehicle or motorcycle, a certificate to scuba dive----- yet all a person needs to operate a 60' boat is the money to buy it.
While the easy argument is that licensing won't prevent accidents, it doesn't prevent accidents in vehicles or planes either. Stupid is as stupid does.
But what training and licensing do accomplish is awareness. An idiot is going to be one no matter what, but if he or she has been exposed to the dangers of certain circumstances, or at least has been shown how to do things correctly, the odds of them making a mistake out of ignorance or following through on a dumb idea--- like putting 27 people on a 34' foot, lightweight boat with only ten or so lifejackets---- go way down.
There is no way to ensure absolute safety, and I'm not an advocate of bending over backwards trying to do so. I'm a fan of Chuck Darwin and I don't get all weepy over people doing dumb things and killing themselves. But so often these dumb things tend to kill other people who had no hand in being dumb. Like this recent incident. The owner is just fine. It's the three kids that paid the price for his ignorance or stupidity or both.
From the boating accidents that happen all over the country every year it's obvious that boats can be just as dangerous as planes, trains, and automobiles. And while one could say the number of boating accidents doesn't begin to approach the number of vehicle accidents, tell that to the parents of the three kids who drowned because a boater didn't have the sense or the training to know how many was too many for his boat.