BCIRPU and our partners at the Community Against Preventable Injuries (Preventable) successfully wrapped up a three-year project to explore attitudes and behaviours around recreational boating safety in BC. We would like to thank Transport Canada for the generous funding and our project partners: the Lifesaving Society and Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue.

The recreational boating safety project developed, delivered, and evaluated a social marketing campaign to raise awareness, transform attitudes, and ultimately change behaviours to reduce boating injuries.

The key messages for the campaign were:

• Wear a PFD or lifejacket
• Save the alcohol for the shore
• Have the right equipment, and know how to use it
• Boating-related deaths and injuries are often not a result of lack of knowledge—an underlying attitude that injuries “are not going to happen to me” causes people to make unsafe decisions. The social marketing campaign associated with the project contributed to increased levels of concerns among surveyed participants regarding recreational boating safety.