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who had been abruptly terminated by his employer for cause following the incident, still had to confront impend- ing negligence charges being brought by the Coast Guard for the actual grounding and resulting minor spill of what turned out to be gear oil from the vessel’s damaged propul- sion drive.

A GENEROUS OFFER

Prior to bringing charges, however, the Coast Guard somewhat surprisingly proposed a settlement offer of the case under which the mate would accept a four-month sus- pension of his USCG license, remitted on a four-month probationary period. The net result being that the mate would be allowed to work under his license as long as he had no further license incidents during the four-month probationary period and enrolled in a Bridge Team Man- agement course of 24 hours or more duration.

After consulting with his attorney and weighing his chances of receiving a better outcome if he rejected the

Coast Guard’s settlement offer, he decided to accept and sign the settlement offer. The thought of looking down the barrel of negligence charges and facing a Suspension & Revocation (S&R) proceeding was far more daunting than successfully completing his probationary period and attending the prescribed course, he concluded.

While this case had a relatively positive outcome for the mariner because of prompt reporting, quick attorney in- tervention and the mate’s candor, clearly the Coast Guard’s strategy and the mate’s ultimate fate would have been de- cidedly different if his cell phone records revealed he was using his device while on duty the night of the grounding.

A RISK WORTH AVOIDING

It’s a fact of life in the modern world that rarely a day goes by when news reports of a horrifi c truck, bus or au- tomobile accident is not attributed to operator distraction of some kind … typically involving a hand-held electronic device. The message to professional mariners operating commercial vessels on America’s waterways is the same:

That phone call, text, or email can all wait until the end of the trip or duty period. Suffi ce it to say that, when on the water in day or night operations, the consequences of ‘distracted driving’ can be as bad or worse for a mariner’s career than any similar transgressions on the road.

Randy O’Neill is Senior Vice

President with Lancer Insurance

Company and has been Manager of its MOPS Marine License

Insurance division since 1984.

Over the past 29 years, Mr. O’Neill has spoken and written on many occasions on the importance of USCG license protection.

He is a regular contributor to MarineNews magazine. He can reached at: [email protected]

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