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You can estimate the usage of these duckboats (and thus their relative safely) pretty easily. These boats have been running for decades and they're described as

You can estimate the usage of these duckboats (and thus their relative safely) pretty easily. These boats have been running for decades and they're described as hugely popular with numerous companies offering duckboat rides throughout the country in various areas with individual boats giving 6+ hours of tours each day. Even at the absolute rock bottom, you're easily way into the millions of hours of operation. And this LATimes piece seemed to try to dig up every single incident they could given they were even reporting random traffic collisions, and there just weren't many relative to this bottom end of the scale. I understand it can be difficult to find facts between all the emotional drivel, but your own article (second one) states, "the captain had a moment of clarity and was able to release the canopy." Of course they could just be writing whatever they feel like, which is another increasingly common trend in media, but this is a rather specific fact.

learc83 8y ago
>running for decades >hugely popular >numerous companies >various areas >6+ hours There is no way to get useful data from that. 80 boats being used all over the country for 6+ hours in a few places with an average of 3 hours per day across all boats for 20 years, fits your descriptions. Automobile fatility rate is 1.25 per 100 million miles. Assuming a high average of 50 mph (to convert to deaths per hour), all those assumptions would put DUKWs at about 40 times more fatalities per hour than cars (over the last 20 years). Maybe there are 160 boats and they really drive 6 hours per day average, that's still 10 times deadlier per hour than cars. Tour boats and tour buses, which we should be comparing them to are much safer than cars. How is that comparison? But none of this matters because we don't have accurate estimates, the NTSB does, and they have experts who evaluated the boats and found them unsafe. I don't care what a news report says. The NTSB report is all the evidence I need unless I see other more compelling evidence to the contrary.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  I doubt those lowballs were your first picks for the numbers here, but nonetheless I respect that you put forth some elbow grease so I'll reciprocate by grabbing some better data. The first Duck Tour business started in 1946 [1] - they're still in business. You can read the NTSB report on the 1999 incident here [2]. The PDF (on the right side panel) has far more information. It includes information such as each year having more than 250 ducks transport more than a million passengers on tours averaging 90 minutes. It's reasonable to assume that that number has been increasing over time, but the millions in the 90s at least gives you a decent ballpark. And so like I expect you were finding with more reasonable estimates, these vehicles are hardly dangerous. And the NTSB also did not find the boats themselves unsafe, though that they could be made to be safer in case of accidents. They stated the cause of the accident was "inadequate maintenance." The other issues, which the media is obsessing on today, were listed as contributing to the magnitude of the incident, not causes of the incident. The cause then, like now, was human error. The 1999 boat was sent out to sea with with a 4.5" hull access plug removed. The mechanic, who was new to the job, forgot to put it back in. The operator did nothing to evacuate the craft, and so on. [1] - http://amusementtoday.com/2015/05/original-wisconsin-ducks-celebrates-70-years-of-operation/ http://amusementtoday.com/2015/05/original-wisconsin-ducks-c... [2] - https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/MAR0201.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/MA...
  - learc83 8y ago
    >having more than 250 ducks transport more than a million passengers That wasn't the number for DUKWs that was the number for all amphibious passenger vehicles. >It's reasonable to assume that that number has been increasing over time That's really a reasonable assumption considering the vehicles are 70+ years old. >but the millions in the 90s at least gives you a decent ballpark Again that's all amphibious vehicles, nothing about DUKWs, but let's assume they are. 1 million passengers. The DUKW in Missouri had 30 passengers, so let's assume the average trip is half full. 1 million passengers / 15 ~= 67k trips * 1.5 hours per trip ~= 100k hours per year. There have about 40 fatalities caused by DUKWs in the last 20 years. 100k hours * 20 years = 2 million hours. 20 deaths per million hours operated For cars we have ~0.625 deaths per million hours operated. 32 times more deadly per hour. Remarkably close to my first estimate. Your #1 link estimates that there are 300 operational DUKWs in the US today. That's going to include reserves that are only operating during busy seasons/weekends etc... But let's assume they are all active for 6 hours per day on average (which is way too high). You still get a fatality rate per hour about 5 times higher than cars. And again, tour boats and tour buses are much safer than cars, so the comparison will be much worse. >And the NTSB also did not find the boats themselves unsafe They did. Here is their recommendation: “Without delay, alter your amphibious passenger vessels to provide reserve buoyancy through passive means, such as watertight compartmentalization, builtin flotation, or equivalent measures, so that they will remain afloat and upright in the event of flooding, even when carrying a full complement of passengers and crew.” “The Safety Board considers that the major consideration in assessing the ability of passengers to escape from a sinking DUKW is the overhead canopy.” >The other issues, which the media is obsessing on today, were listed as contributing to the magnitude of the incident, not causes of the incident. Of course they aren't the cause. A canopy isn't going to cause a boat to sink.
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      These vehicles have been operating since 1946. That's 72 years, not 20. The reason I gave you the hours and population is because you then figure out 'person hours' without having to make any assumptions other than average rate of travel to go from deaths/mile to deaths/hour - which I expect is a stat you can actually probably also find out. This was the NTSB's conclusion on the accident. "The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the flooding and sinking of the DUKW No.1 was a missing access plug, which, in turn, was caused by inadequate supervision of company personnel and inadequate management oversight of amphibious passenger vehicle maintenance. Contributing to the sinking was a flaw in the design of DUKWs, that is, the lack of adequate reserve buoyancy that would have allowed the vehicle to remain afloat in a flooded condition." The accident was not caused because the vehicles were unsafe. It was caused because of human error. The things you're talking about are factors that contributed to the sinking. Without the main problem (human error) there would be no problem. And, lo and behold, human error was also the cause in this most recent incident as well.

learc83 8y ago

>running for decades >hugely popular >numerous companies >various areas >6+ hours There is no way to get useful data from that. 80 boats being used all over the country for 6+ hours in a few places with an average of 3 hours per day across all boats for 20 years, fits your descriptions. Automobile fatility rate is 1.25 per 100 million miles. Assuming a high average of 50 mph (to convert to deaths per hour), all those assumptions would put DUKWs at about 40 times more fatalities per hour than cars (over the last 20 years). Maybe there are 160 boats and they really drive 6 hours per day average, that's still 10 times deadlier per hour than cars. Tour boats and tour buses, which we should be comparing them to are much safer than cars. How is that comparison? But none of this matters because we don't have accurate estimates, the NTSB does, and they have experts who evaluated the boats and found them unsafe. I don't care what a news report says. The NTSB report is all the evidence I need unless I see other more compelling evidence to the contrary.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago
I doubt those lowballs were your first picks for the numbers here, but nonetheless I respect that you put forth some elbow grease so I'll reciprocate by grabbing some better data. The first Duck Tour business started in 1946 [1] - they're still in business. You can read the NTSB report on the 1999 incident here [2]. The PDF (on the right side panel) has far more information. It includes information such as each year having more than 250 ducks transport more than a million passengers on tours averaging 90 minutes. It's reasonable to assume that that number has been increasing over time, but the millions in the 90s at least gives you a decent ballpark. And so like I expect you were finding with more reasonable estimates, these vehicles are hardly dangerous. And the NTSB also did not find the boats themselves unsafe, though that they could be made to be safer in case of accidents. They stated the cause of the accident was "inadequate maintenance." The other issues, which the media is obsessing on today, were listed as contributing to the magnitude of the incident, not causes of the incident. The cause then, like now, was human error. The 1999 boat was sent out to sea with with a 4.5" hull access plug removed. The mechanic, who was new to the job, forgot to put it back in. The operator did nothing to evacuate the craft, and so on. [1] - http://amusementtoday.com/2015/05/original-wisconsin-ducks-celebrates-70-years-of-operation/ http://amusementtoday.com/2015/05/original-wisconsin-ducks-c... [2] - https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/MAR0201.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/MA...
- learc83 8y ago
  >having more than 250 ducks transport more than a million passengers That wasn't the number for DUKWs that was the number for all amphibious passenger vehicles. >It's reasonable to assume that that number has been increasing over time That's really a reasonable assumption considering the vehicles are 70+ years old. >but the millions in the 90s at least gives you a decent ballpark Again that's all amphibious vehicles, nothing about DUKWs, but let's assume they are. 1 million passengers. The DUKW in Missouri had 30 passengers, so let's assume the average trip is half full. 1 million passengers / 15 ~= 67k trips * 1.5 hours per trip ~= 100k hours per year. There have about 40 fatalities caused by DUKWs in the last 20 years. 100k hours * 20 years = 2 million hours. 20 deaths per million hours operated For cars we have ~0.625 deaths per million hours operated. 32 times more deadly per hour. Remarkably close to my first estimate. Your #1 link estimates that there are 300 operational DUKWs in the US today. That's going to include reserves that are only operating during busy seasons/weekends etc... But let's assume they are all active for 6 hours per day on average (which is way too high). You still get a fatality rate per hour about 5 times higher than cars. And again, tour boats and tour buses are much safer than cars, so the comparison will be much worse. >And the NTSB also did not find the boats themselves unsafe They did. Here is their recommendation: “Without delay, alter your amphibious passenger vessels to provide reserve buoyancy through passive means, such as watertight compartmentalization, builtin flotation, or equivalent measures, so that they will remain afloat and upright in the event of flooding, even when carrying a full complement of passengers and crew.” “The Safety Board considers that the major consideration in assessing the ability of passengers to escape from a sinking DUKW is the overhead canopy.” >The other issues, which the media is obsessing on today, were listed as contributing to the magnitude of the incident, not causes of the incident. Of course they aren't the cause. A canopy isn't going to cause a boat to sink.
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    These vehicles have been operating since 1946. That's 72 years, not 20. The reason I gave you the hours and population is because you then figure out 'person hours' without having to make any assumptions other than average rate of travel to go from deaths/mile to deaths/hour - which I expect is a stat you can actually probably also find out. This was the NTSB's conclusion on the accident. "The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the flooding and sinking of the DUKW No.1 was a missing access plug, which, in turn, was caused by inadequate supervision of company personnel and inadequate management oversight of amphibious passenger vehicle maintenance. Contributing to the sinking was a flaw in the design of DUKWs, that is, the lack of adequate reserve buoyancy that would have allowed the vehicle to remain afloat in a flooded condition." The accident was not caused because the vehicles were unsafe. It was caused because of human error. The things you're talking about are factors that contributed to the sinking. Without the main problem (human error) there would be no problem. And, lo and behold, human error was also the cause in this most recent incident as well.