The National Boating Safety Advisory Council (NBSAC) has released the 2012 Life Jacket Wear Observation Study. The report provides data and analysis in addition to a comparison of information from the previous 13 years’ studies (1999-2011). Tracking the changes in life jacket wear rates over time provides important statistics for those individuals and groups responsible for educating the public about boating safety, improving boating safety programs, and for legislative efforts targeting safety improvements for recreational boating.

The study shows that over the past three years there has been an overall increase of 1.5 percentage points for total wear rates. The average life jacket wear rate for all boats and boaters combined for 2012 was 22.6 percent, a slight increase from 2011 (21.8%) and 2010 (21.1%).