Terrible Dive shops

[Sarah]

You have to know something though, when it comes to personal injury lawyers, it is NEVER about common sense, it is about finding any rediculous possible angle and exploiting it.

As an example, a personal injury lawyer would have a FIELD DAY exploiting the fact that a dive shop trusts the visual inspection of another dive shop:

Defendant dive shop: We saw the tank had a visual inspection sticker on it that was current
Lawyer: Did your company perform that visual inspection?

Defendant dive shop: No
Personal injury lawyer: You can swear under oath that you have personal information on who specifically performed the visual then?

Defendant dive shop: no

Personal injury lawyer: So for all you know, someone could have put the sticker on without even making a visual, isn't that right Mr. Negligent dive shop owner?

Personal Injury lawyer: Lets incorrectly assume a visual was made by the other dive shop as you now admit you can't attest to. Have you personally trained the employee of the other hypothetical dive shop to have performed that visual properly?

Defendantdive shop: No

Personal injury lawyer: So you cannot swear under oath here today then that the employee of the other dive shop was qualified in ANY manner whatsoever, can you?!

Personal injury lawyer: Since you've now admitted that for all you know, the sticker could have been just placed on with no visual, or by a person utterly unqualified, why didn't you refuse to fill the tank till you performed a visual inspection?

End of case, slam dunk for the trial lawyer.

This is how slimebag lawyers work, and there is no getting out of it. It is the reason why 30% of your physician/surgeon bill goes just to pay their malpractice insurance.

[Zero]

We dont have the worry of visuals here every year but we do have to hydro our tanks yearly. If the necks not stamped not many shops will fill your tank. Some have a weird understanding of how the stamps work and try to get you by saying its valid to the start of the month but really its valid until the end of the month. It does clear a lot of confusion by not having stickers that may come off or even placed on another tank but it does mean added stress on the tank every year and O2 cleaning them yearly as well if needed.

Matt

[seasnake]

Wow, iDiveChick, remind me not to sue you ...

This brings up an interesting point. In Canada, there is only a law that the tank must be hydro'd every five years. But there is no law at all saying a tank must be visually inspected annually. I believe it is the same in the US. That is a dive industry standard, but not a gov't regulation. Even though outfits like PSI started a program to train visual inspectors, there are no gov't standards or applicable laws, and in actuality it is true that any Joe can stick a vip sticker on his tank and be just as legal as the guy who took a course from PSI, TDI or whoever.

That being said, obviously a dive shop is allowed to refuse any tank any time they want on whatever grounds they want. It may not be good for business but it certainly is within their right. And I would think there would be an argument for lack of due diligence if annual vips are at least a dive industry recommendation and yet a shop ignored it and there was an accident.

Another note: several folks around here went out and took visual inspection courses from different agencies so they could inspect their own tanks, but then some of the same shops that taught them won't accept their tanks because they weren't inspected by a "shop". This is more a case of being petty about losing a couple bucks on the inspection, but ...

[BamaCaveDiver]

Wow, iDiveChick, remind me not to sue you ...

This brings up an interesting point. In Canada, there is only a law that the tank must be hydro'd every five years. But there is no law at all saying a tank must be visually inspected annually. I believe it is the same in the US. That is a dive industry standard, but not a gov't regulation. Even though outfits like PSI started a program to train visual inspectors, there are no gov't standards or applicable laws, and in actuality it is true that any Joe can stick a vip sticker on his tank and be just as legal as the guy who took a course from PSI, TDI or whoever.

That being said, obviously a dive shop is allowed to refuse any tank any time they want on whatever grounds they want. It may not be good for business but it certainly is within their right. And I would think there would be an argument for lack of due diligence if annual vips are at least a dive industry recommendation and yet a shop ignored it and there was an accident.

Another note: several folks around here went out and took visual inspection courses from different agencies so they could inspect their own tanks, but then some of the same shops that taught them won't accept their tanks because they weren't inspected by a "shop". This is more a case of being petty about losing a couple bucks on the inspection, but ...

Annual visual inspections of SCUBA cylinders is not a law in the US, it is an industry standard.

I would be leery of a shop that certified an inspector but then refused to honor those credentials, unless they know that the individual is doing a substandard job. Most shops will usually invite students to come in and make use of shop equipment for a couple of bucks.

[deep flight]

wow! pretty and smarts! and a diver to boot!! i'm in love!!!

on second thought, she's scary!!!

[hbh2oguard]

Bama I fully agree that every VIP isn't the same, and it seems like diving down south is a pain in the butt. Hydo's every year, I guess it's safer but must add up and just seems a little overkill.

[Zero]

It does add up i just had 5 of my tanks hydrod. A$100 for all of them and then a fill is on top of that. I was lucky because i found a test station near me but if you go thru a shop its A$40-50 per tank at least including the fill. A$10 saved per tank adds up pretty quick when you have a few and your willing to take them to the test station. Add ontop of all that recleaning the tanks for O2 service and the price is even more. On the good side of things i cant remember the last time a tank went pop. Burst disks help as well.

Matt