As you will have noticed it’s the time of the year again when many teams are visiting Canberra to complete training camps. I have recently received many emails and personally witnessed quite a few traffic violations which had the potential to cause serious injury. In addition last Friday there was a serious collision on the rowing cause where a coxless four T-boned a coxed quad at race pace. Fortunately no one was seriously harmed, however reports suggest if the four had been inches of the course they were on or the quad had not stopped when they had the consequences would have been dire.

Over the past week I have personally contacted each club hosting interstate visitors to insure they take responsibility for insuring the visitors are aware of the traffic patterns and regulations. Furthermore I have made sure to follow up with hosting clubs any reports of incorrect procedure.

I would like to also plead with local rowers to take extreme caution. We must all understand that the lake is incredibly busy this time of year and must make every effort avoid such incidents. We must all remain vigilant.

Personally I spent many years operating large commercial vessels. One of the most significant guidelines I learnt was to always make your intentions clear. That is, do not leave any doubt as to your direction and speed. I would ask all local rowers to follow local rules to insure we all set a good example, in addition to making sure we do not leave visiting crews with any doubts about our intentions which often lead to incorrect dangerous decisions.