The boating tragedy on the Kawarau River on Monday night which left two men dead and a man and a woman in a serious condition was an accident waiting to happen, says a commercial boat operator.
Kawarau Jet director Andy Brinsley said his company had approached the Queenstown Lakes District Council seeking input over improved safety on the river, but it had "fallen on deaf ears".
It is the third tragedy in as many months involving jet-boats in the Queenstown area.
Paul Woods (29), a doctor from the United Kingdom working in Dunedin, was killed when his jet-boat flipped on the Matukituki River on Boxing Day.
Two others were hurt.
In September, a Kawarau Jet boat carrying 22 Chinese passengers flipped after apparently hitting a sandbar where the Shotover and Kawarau Rivers meet.
One woman was killed and another eight people injured.
Mr Brinsley said people constantly flouted the rules which required boats to travel on the right side of the river, and there needed to be more policing and better education, he said.
"We operate every day of the year and we have signalled [to QLDC] in the last month there are compounding safety issues that need to be considered and we have never been given any opportunity to present them to council.
"The Lakes Environmental officer says there are no safety issues and we say there are. It's only being visited now because people have lost their lives."
His comments were backed up by Noel Gutzewitz, who lives beside the river and was first at the scene after Monday night's crash and called emergency services.
It was nine years to the day - January 6, 2000 - since his daughter and a friend were nearly hit by a jet-boat while they were in a dinghy on the river in the same location.
Nothing had changed, he said.
The two incidents were frighteningly similar and had left him frustrated that more had not been done to prevent a tragedy like that which occurred this week, Mr Gutzewitz said.
His daughter and a friend were swamped in their dinghy by a jet-boat which came around the willow trees and headed right for them, swerving to miss them at the last minute.
"It was pretty scary," Mr Gutzewitz said.
"It was an incident that did happen and we were so upset, that's why we reported it [at the time]."
More and more people were using the river, compounding the problem, he said.
A boat had gone up the river on the wrong side just two hours before Monday's accident and another boat had also gone up the river, at speed, on the wrong side yesterday.
Mr Gutzewitz was frustrated by the lack of control of boaties on the river since his daughter's near miss.
Queenstown Lakes Mayor Clive Geddes dismissed any suggestion the council could have done anything to prevent Monday's tragedy, saying the river rules were adequate and, just like the road rules, some people would always ignore them.
"If people obeyed the rules, there would be no accidents. It's the same as the roads," he said.
"I can't imagine a circumstance where you would have prevented what happened [on Monday] night. This accident would appear to be related to people not obeying the rules."
The rules were simple and not out of date, because the council was required to update them which it was in the process of doing, he said.
Based on boaties' use of the access ramps, there was no evidence to show an increase in the number of river users, he added.
Monday's accident was a tragedy for everybody, but "accidents do happen", he said.
Few mishaps involving craft have been reported on Lake Wanaka this summer, but father and son Lakeland Adventures jet-boat drivers Simon and Nick Stewart said yesterday they had observed or been informed of several incidents.
They included a jet-skier riding right behind a water-skier in Roys Bay, a collision between a jet ski and a boat in Glendhu Bay and a jet ski speeding at about 80kmh within 2m of a jet-boat being launched at Albert Town.
Simon Stewart said he was disappointed boats were not registered and drivers were not licensed.
"How the heck can Marty Black enforce the rules when he's got no [enforcement] teeth? If they [boaties] had something to lose, it would have an effect. Otherwise, people just thumb their nose at him," Mr Stewart said.
Many people seemed unaware of the rules of rivers and lakes, which included giving way to the right and travelling on the right on rivers, he said.
Drivers should have to be licensed.
