No more resting on Italian lakes. Calls for more controls and stricter rules for boaters are loud after an Italian couple was killed on June 19 on Lake Garda. Munich tourists had rammed its small wooden boat with their motorboat. Just a week later there was another fatal accident, this time on Lake Como: The victim, a 22-year-old Italian, was on board a motorboat when another motorboat with about ten holidaymakers from Belgium ran it over. The student died on the spot and his two friends were injured. “The lake is not the Wild West” or “Now is the end: More controls are necessary”, reads in the Italian media. And: “More respect for the lake”.
Statistics from the Italian Ministry of Transport show that boats not only mean sunbathing and dolce vita, but that they also pose dangers time and again. Because far fewer people have fatal accidents in boat accidents than in traffic accidents, these are less perceived by the public – until the events of the past few days.
Alcohol test not mandatory
Several factors play a role in the current debate: the two accidents occurred within a week on lakes popular with tourists, the three dead were young, between 22 and 37 years old, the speed was presumably high, the collision was caused by foreign holidaymakers who also did not provide first aid in the accident on Lake Garda. There was also a stir that one of the suspects in the Lake Garda accident refused to take the alcohol test. This is not mandatory for accidents on the water, but it is mandatory if you are traveling by car – which is why similarly strict rules are now required for boat traffic as they already apply to car traffic.
For five years now, Italian law has provided harsher penalties for judging a car accident as manslaughter. If drugs or alcohol are involved, they can be even higher. The rule, which was introduced under Matteo Renzi’s government, was called the daily newspaper La Repubblica once “the strongest road safety law ever implemented in the history of the Italian Republic”. It is definitely a political response to the many dramatic accidents that happen on the street, but whether it really made a difference is debatable. Although the number of traffic accidents in Italy has decreased since the law was introduced five years ago, this trend has been going on for 15 years. So you would omicidio nautico, Introduce the criminal offense of “manslaughter by boat accident”, as some are now calling for, would that actually also reduce the number of fatal accidents at sea? Or would that just be political activism?
It will be some time before such a law comes into effect (if it comes at all). Meanwhile, and with a view to the summer season, many Italians are calling for more speed controls on the waters and restrictions on motorboats. In Trentino, in the northernmost part of Lake Garda around Riva del Garda, a ban has been in place for several years: there, driving a motorboat is generally not allowed. It is unlikely that motorboats will be completely banned in the southern part of Lake Garda or on other lakes. However, environmental organizations are also advocating stricter regulations to solve the problem at the source. The environmental protection organization Legambiente, for example, demands that the rental of motor boats be prohibited and that sustainable tourism be promoted.