Critics long sought ban on duck boats
SEATTLE — Even before a duck boat crashed into a charter bus in Seattle, killing four international students, calls had emerged for greater oversight and even an outright ban on the military-style vehicles that allow tourists to see cities by road and water.
Critics said the large amphibious vehicles are built for war, not for ferrying tourists on narrow city streets.
“Duck boats are dangerous on the land and on the water. They shouldn’t be allowed to be used,” Robert Mongeluzzi, a Philadelphia attorney, said Friday, renewing his call for a moratorium on their operation nationwide.
His firm represented the families of victims in a deadly 2010 crash near Philadelphia. A tugboat-guided barge plowed into a duck boat packed with tourists that had stalled in the Delaware River, sinking the boat and killing two Hungarian students.
“They were created to invade a country from the water, not to carry tourists,” said Mongeluzzi, whose firm now represents the family of a woman killed in May by an amphibious vehicle in Philadelphia.
Some attorneys also question the focus of the drivers. In Seattle, tours are complete with exuberant operators who play loud music and quack through speakers.
“This is a business model that requires the driver to be a driver, tour guide and entertainer at the same time,” said Steve Bulzomi, the attorney for a motorcyclist who was run over and dragged by a duck boat that came up behind him at a stoplight in Seattle in 2011.
The four dead were among the approximately 45 students and staff members from North Seattle College who were traveling Thursday to the city’s popular Pike Place Market and Safeco Field for orientation events when, witnesses said, the duck boat suddenly swerved into their oncoming charter bus.
Brad Volm of Philadelphia was driving in another vehi- cle and said the amphibious vehicle’s left front tire appeared to lock up.
Authorities said it’s too soon to determine what caused the crash that killed four students from Austria, China, Indonesia and Japan. A National Transportation Safety Board team arrived Friday to lead an investigation that typically takes a year, the agency said.
The president of Ride the Ducks of Seattle said his main concern was the families of the victims. Brian Tracey told The Associated Press that “we will get to the bottom” of the crash.
Tracey said 36 people were on the vehicle, whose driver had Coast Guard certification and a commercial driving license. All company drivers are required to take continuing education classes, he said.
“We take these issues very seriously,” Tracey said.
Bulzomi said the latest accident should compel authorities to take action.
“I would hope everybody would take a serious look at whether this is a real good idea for the streets of Seattle,” Bulzomi said.
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray said Ride the Ducks of Seattle has voluntarily sidelined its vehicles for the time being. He wasn’t sure whether the duck boats would be allowed to continue in the city but said the board was interested in duck-boat safety because such vehicles are operating in other cities.
The federal agency’s investigation in Seattle is the first time it is looking into a duckboat crash on land, board member Earl Weener said at a news conference Friday. The board has scrutinized the vehicles several times when they have been in accidents on water, he said.
The safety of the amphibious boats has been questioned before. They are remnants from when the U.S. Army deployed thousands of amphibious landing craft during World War II. Once the war was over, some were converted to sightseeing vehicles in U.S. cities.
On May 1, 1999, a duck boat owned by Land & Lake Tours Inc. of Hot Springs sank on Lake Hamilton after being on the water only a few minutes, killing 13 people. A Coast Guard report noted that the craft took on water after a rubber drive shaft seal came loose and that the vessel’s emergency water pump and high-water alarm were inoperable. Several passengers were trapped beneath the Miss Majestic’s cloth canopy as the boat sank.
Bulzomi, the lawyer for the Seattle man struck by a duck boat in 2011, said he found two other recent cases in which duck boats rear-ended vehicles at stoplights. In both cases, the drivers told police they couldn’t see the other vehicle because of the height of the duck boats, he said.
Thursday’s crash happened as North Seattle College students were touring the city. The collision on the Aurora Bridge, which carries one of the city’s main northsouth highways over picturesque Lake Union, left behind a tangled mess of twisted metal and shattered glass.
Authorities said 51 people were taken to area hospitals, and 14 remained in intensive care at Seattle hospitals.
Students, faculty and staff of North Seattle College, a diverse school of about 14,000 students, gathered on campus Friday to grieve.
“There are still wounds in our heart,” North Seattle College President Warren Brown said later at a news conference.