Virginia’s Crashed Boats will be Safety-Teaching Tools

A boating safety group hopes crashing boats on the James River will help investigators learn how to reconstruct collisions.

The crashes last month were recorded, and the damaged boats, video and data gathered will be used in training courses for local, state and federal marine law enforcement officers around the country.

The National Association of State Boating Law Administrators teaches the training courses. It hopes the information from the crashes also can be used to develop safer boats and shape boating safety regulations across the country.

The U.S. Coast Guard says that 709 people died in nearly 4,800 recreational boating accidents last year. While most deaths were caused by falling overboard, 60 boaters died and another 856 were injured in collisions.