INTRODUCTION

N ITS CONTINUING efforts to promote safety at sea the United States Coast Guard, in cooperation with maritime interests and other Government agencies, has established sealanes in the congested waters approaching New York and Philadelphia harbors. These lanes are being set forth on the new Coast and Geodetic Survey navigation charts of these waters.1 Convinced that such lanes will reduce the incidence of collisions, the Coast Guard is studying the feasibility of originating similar type lanes off other busy coastal ports. Plans for the approaches to San Francisco Bay are nearing completion and will probably appear on charts in the near future. Studies are being made of the waters adjacent to New England ports and the approaches to Miami, Chesapeake Bay and West Coast ports to determine the necessity of further sealane implementation.

The chart on the opposite page demonstrates the new sealanes. They establish basically a twoway traffic system for entering and departing New York and Philadelphia harbors. Each set of lanes is divided by a buffer zone, not unlike a highway median strip. Although it is permissible to cross the lanes and buffer zone, crossing should be made only where necessary and at as wide an angle as feasible. Of course, extra cau

*Lieutenant Schwartz is currently assigned to the Admiralty Division, Office of the Judge Advocate General. He received the B.A. degree from Shimer College in 1960 and the J.D. degree from the Northwestern University School of Law in 1964. Lieutenant Schwartz is a member of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois. 1. Also see U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office Notice to Mariners No. 13, Apr 1, 1967, par. 1376.

tion should be taken while crossing the lanes in view of the predictably heavy traffic. There are three sets of lanes for the port of New York. All originate on a circle with a 7-mile radius, the center of which is Ambrose Light Station. The inbound and outbound lanes are 1 mile wide at the edge of the circle and fan out to 5 miles in width at the extremities. The buffer zones range in width from 1 to 3 miles. Two sets of lanes approach the port of Philadelphia.

The sealane concept is not new, nor is it universally accepted. In fact, it is in direct conflict with the traditional freedom of a master to negotiate the course of his choosing. However, there are compelling reasons for regulating the traffic of vessels in some areas of the high seas. One need look only to the proportion of collisions occurring in heavily traveled waters to perceive the need for some traffic regulation. Sealanes will not eliminate collisions but they will reduce the risks and, accordingly, the number.

HISTORY

As early as 1855 the noted naval officer-scientist, Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maury,2 devised traffic lanes for the treacherous waters of the North Atlantic, where fog, ice and heavy traffic all contributed to numerous collisions. Historically, great tragedies have often precipitated reform. Maury was requested to chart lanes for Atlantic crossings shortly after the collision between the Arctic and the Vesta which claimed over 300 lives. Since the majority of passenger steamers traversed these waters on their United States to Europe runs the pos

2. For an exhaustive and excellent biography of Maury, see Williams, Matthew Fontaine Maury, Scientist of the Sea (1963).

sibility of another such disaster was apparent and the need for preventive measures imperative. Lieutenant Maury responded with weeks of intense examination of hundreds of ships' logs. Taking into consideration the factors of winds, currents, ice and general weather conditions, he devised a system of lanes for North Atlantic travel which not only reduced the danger of collision but took full advantage of currents and winds for maximum navigational efficiency. The Navy's hydrographic office adopted these lanes and published them on the pilot charts of the North Atlantic. To the present day these charts bear this notation:

Founded upon the researches made in the early part of the nineteenth century by Matthew Fontaine Maury, while serving as a lieutenant in the United States Navy.

These lanes were the forerunners of the North Atlantic Track Lines which the parties to the North Atlantic Track Agreement have consented to employ. Although United States passenger vessels are required to follow these lanes,3 they are not mandatory for the great majority of oceangoing vessels. Sixteen passenger lines have voluntarily adopted them as members of the North Atlantic Track Agreement. The failure of many vessels to follow these routes, of course, reduces their effectiveness. The most widely publicized sea tragedy of recent times could have been averted through the use of the North Atlantic Track Lines. The Stockholm-Andrea Doria collision claimed 44 lives, and the resultant property damage exceeded $30,000,000. The incident attracted the attention of the entire world. The issue of fault was hotly debated in court hearings just after the collision and is still the subject of speculation among those interested in maritime safety. However, one thing is evident. Had the Swedish Line and Italian Line been parties to the North Atlantic Track Agreement, and their vessels following the North Atlantic Track Lines, the Andrea Doria and the Stockholm would have passed miles apart. Ironically, these Lines persist in their refusal to join the Track Line Agreement. The U. S. House of Representatives Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries investigated the collision and concluded that the Stockholm, which was heading for Europe, was nearly on the westbound track and some 20 miles north of the recommended eastbound track. In calling for the universal recognition of sealanes, the committee

3. 33 C.F.R. 105.10.

4. The committee's findings are embodied in H.R. Rep. No. 2969, 84th Cong., 2d Sess. 7 (1957).

stated:

Since the first proposal of ocean lanes a century ago, it has been recognized that to make use of the lanes mandatory presented a very complex problem. Sufficient progress has been made in the science of navigation to require the observances of such sealanes and appropriate action should be instituted to this end."

As noted above, American passenger vessels are required to follow these routes. Although there is no corresponding statute or regulation requiring other types of commercial and public vessels to adhere to sealanes, the United States Coast Guard, charged with responsibility for promoting safety of life and property at sea,' has participated in establishing these sealanes and has urged all vessels to use them. And, although acceptance of the lanes is voluntary, it should be noted that there are criminal sanctions for operating a vessel in a negligent manner so as to endanger life or property. It would appear that in view of the obvious benefits of systematized traffic separation, a failure to follow these lanes without justification might be considered such criminal negligence.

International recognition of the safety sealane concept was crystallized in the final act of the 1960 International Conference on Safety of Life at Sea. Noting that the practice of following recognized routes across the North Atlantic, particularly in the areas of converging traffic at both ends, had reduced collisions between ships and with icebergs, the treaty called for the signatories to recommend these routes to all ships.10 However, the actual selection of

5. Id. at 6-7.

6. See supra note 3. 7. 14 U.S.C. 2.

8. 46 U.S.C. 526m.

9. Safety of Life at Sea Convention, June 17, 1960, 16 U.S.T. 185, T.I.A.S. 5780.

10. Ibid. Ch. V, reg. 8, provides:

"(a) The practice of following recognized routes across the North Atlantic in both directions and, in particular, routes in converging areas of both sides of the North Atlantic, has contributed to the avoidance of collisions between ships and with icebergs, and should be recommended to all ships concerned.

"(b) The selection of the routes and the initiation of action with regard to them, and the delineation of what constitutes converging areas, is left to the responsibility of the shipping companies concerned. The Contracting Governments will assist the companies, when requested to do so, by placing at their disposal any information bearing on the routes which may be in the possession of the Governments.

"(c) The Contracting Governments undertake to impose on the companies the obligations to give public notice of the regular routes which they propose their ships should follow, and of any changes made in these routes. They will also use their influence to induce the owners of all passenger ships crossing the Atlantic to follow the recognized routes, and will do everything in their power to ensure adherence to such routes in the converging areas by all ships, so far as circumstances will permit. They will also induce the owners of all ships crossing the Atlantic bound to or

the routes was left to the shipping companies. In accordance with this agreement, the Coast Guard and others interested in maritime safety established lanes for New York and Philadelphia. The work in this area is continuing and it is likely that lanes will eventually be formulated for the approaches to all major ports in the United States.

The Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization (IMCO), an organization composed of representatives from most of the major maritime nations, has taken an active interest in sealanes as a method of coping with the problems of collision and stranding. The stranding of the Torrey Canyon and its aftermath added further impetus to the movement to adopt sealanes. Perhaps the most congested and dangerous waterway in the world is the Straits of Dover in the English Channel. In 1964, IMCO adopted a report of the Institutes of Navigation in Great Britain and France, and of their German counterpart, the Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Ortung und Navigation. This report 11 proposed sealanes for various converging areas and was particularly directed to the Dover Straits. Almost half the world's collisions occur in the area bounded by the Elbe River and the English Channel.12 The most heavily traveled part of this area is the Straits of Dover, with approximately 300,000 ships a year passing through a 5-mile-wide passage. The report's recommended lanes for these waters have been published on charts, and France and Great Britain have issued appropriate notices to mariners.13

NEED FOR SEALANES

How will the sealane prevent or reduce collisions? Because ships are able, with modern equipment, to fix their position with extreme accuracy, there tends to be a heavy concentration of ships within small areas and along certain routes.14 This concentration of traffic increases the incidence of meeting, crossing and overtaking situations where the proximity of the vessels increases the risk of collision. With the

10. from ports of the United States or Canada via the vicinity of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland to avoid, as far as practicable, the fishing banks of Newfoundland north of latitude 43° N. during the fishing season, and to pass outside regions known or believed to be endangered by ice." 16 U.S.T. at 500, 502. 11. Traffic Regulation in the Dover Strait, 16 Journal of the Institute of Navigation (London) 15 (1963).

12. The Separation of Traffic at Sea, 19 Journal of the Institute of Navigation (London) 411 (1966).

13. Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization Doc. SN/Circ. 35, May 30, 1967.

14. See, The Separation of Traffic at Sea, supra note 13.

constant increase in traffic the hazards have intensified.

All situations involving approaching vessels are hazardous to some degree, the reason being, of course, the difficulty in determining the intention of the approaching vessel. The meeting situation where the vessels approach end-on or nearly end-on is the one most fraught with danger because of the high relative speed and correspondingly limited time for maneuvering. To a lesser extent these same problems make crossing and overtaking encounters perilous. The sealanes and buffer zones, where in effect, will reduce meeting situations to a minimum. Of course, the possibility of a stray or maverick vessel proceeding down the wrong lane is as real as the occasional but frightening instance of a motor vehicle bucking one-way traffic. However, in such an instance the vessel in the proper channel is not relieved of the obligation to obey the International Rules of the Road.15 The legal requirements and consequences flowing from the establishment of the sealanes are discussed more fully below.

The crossing situation is probably the second most frequent setting for collisions, and sealanes also reduce the risk there. Although the vessel traveling in the lane will not be more prepared than usual for a crossing vessel, the vessel traversing the lanes will. With the lanes now charted and notice to mariners having been given, the master of a vessel crossing the lanes should know just about when he will encounter the sealane traffic. For example, the master of a vessel crossing the lanes for North Atlantic traffic will be prepared to use extreme caution when approaching the waters between Ambrose Light Station and the Nantucket Light Ship, knowing of the likelihood of encountering eastbound and westbound ships. It follows that the risk of collision will be diminished with the increasing predictability of such approaching situations. Sealanes will not reduce the incidence of overtaking collisions but this situation is the least problematical and accounts for but a small minority of collisions.

Perhaps the most persuasive evidence of the effectiveness of traffic separation in congested waters is the drop in the collision rate in the Great Lakes after implementation of the divided upbound and downbound courses established in the early part of this century by the Lake Carriers' Association and the Dominion Marine As

15. 33 U.S.C. 1061-1094.

sociation. Their continued use for more than 50 years testifies to the wisdom of this type of maritime traffic regulation.

LEGAL EFFECT OF SEALANES

At this point one thing is clear. The sealanes do not alter or supersede in any way the Rules of the Road. Ships meeting will still be bound by Rule 18. Ships crossing will still be bound by Rule 19. Of course, as stated above, in areas where lanes are promulgated, meeting situations should be less frequent and crossing situations more predictable. But when they do occur the specific Rules will govern the conduct of the respective vessels. However, a ship traveling from New York to Europe outside the prescribed lane for such a course would seem to be negligent under general maritime law. Accordingly, where one of two colliding vessels traveling on opposite courses is outside the prescribed sealane for her course she would be at least partially at fault and her owner could hope in any ensuing litigation to do no better than be liable for half the resulting damages. 16 As yet, there has been no reported litigation in which deviation from sealanes was in issue. However, there is, as hereinafter indicated, authoritative precedent for the proposition that maritime law imposes the duty upon masters to follow these lanes.

As mentioned above, the Lake Carriers' Association and the Dominion Marine Association established by private agreement upbound and downbound courses separated by safety zones for their vessels to follow on the Great Lakes. These lanes became so universally followed they were printed on the official charts of those waters. In the early morning hours of November 21, 1934 the steamers Edward E. Loomis and W. C. Franz collided in fog on Lake Huron. The collision occurred in a safety or buffer zone between the upbound and downbound courses. In the ensuing litigation one of the issues before the court was the contention of the Edward Loomis that her deviation from the prescribed course was not a sufficient fault to hold her liable for half the damages. The case 17 was heard before the most experienced and respected of all admiralty courts, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which included the venerable jurist,

16. The American rule in admiralty provides that when both vessels are at fault the total damages are divided equally regardless of the relative degree of fault. The Schooner Catherine v. Dickinson, 58 U.S. (17 How.) 170 (1854).

17. The Edward E. Loomis, 86 F. 2d 705 (2nd. Cir. 1936).

Learned Hand. The court's disposition of this issue is worthy of quote:

The place of collision was found to be within the space referred to as the "safety zone" which lies between the upbound and downbound courses recommended by the Lake Carriers' Association and the Dominion Marine Association. These courses have been accorded such general recognition that they appear on the official charts of Lake Huron. . . . The Loomis [asserts] that these courses have not been established by governmental authority, and so it was no fault to depart from them. Departure, it is true, is not a statutory fault; but, where ship owners agree that mutual safety requires ships to follow stated courses, and these are recognized to the extent that they even appear on the official maps, the courts should hold that it is negligent navigation to leave them without

The case for enforcing the new sealanes is at least as strong. The lanes are recommended by the Coast Guard and others interested in safety at sea, and they should carry at least the force of the privately agreed upon courses on the Great Lakes. They no doubt will be recognized by courts of admiralty. The compelling safety benefits of the new sealanes are even more important than those of the courses on the Great Lakes because of the heavy amount of passenger as well as other commercial traffic. Thus, it can then be seen that in addition to the obvious safety advantage of complying with the new lanes, good seamanship requires their use, and any litigation or settlement of the civil liabilities of a collision must so reflect.

CONCLUSION

Collision statistics for the Great Lakes before and after the establishment of upbound and downbound courses illustrate the safety benefits of separation of maritime traffic in congested areas. Common sense tells us that sealanes should result in the same improvement where implemented. We have discussed the possibility of mandatory enforcement of these lanes and noted the likelihood that the courts will recognize them to the extent that they establish a standard of good seamanship. However, their ultimate success depends on their voluntary acceptance. Most maritime governments, through the 1960 SOLAS Convention, have indicated their affirmance of the principle of limited traffic separation at sea. Several shipping lines have also actively participated in this safety measure. The entire maritime community should do the

same.

18. Id. at 707.

THE

HE FACT THAT the number of motorvehicle deaths in this country has climbed steadily from 36,981 in 1958 to 52,500 in 1966 must mean that we have not discovered the principal cause, or applied the definitive remedy. Our experiences with malaria, pneumonia, and cancer would tell us that this is so.

At the outset, the point must be made clear that the fatal and very-serious-injury "accident" is quite a different entity from the ordinary fender-bender, or even the accident in which people are cut by flying glass and get a broken bone or two. Not always, but in most cases, there is marked crushing or deformation of the cars involved. This is due, of course, to the fact that these are mostly high-speed crashes, and this is where the slogan "SPEED KILLS" came from.

But we must push back farther to a more basic question, "Why were these high-speed cars so ill-controlled that a fatal or very serious injury was the result?" One answer to this question is well known by now, and has been published repeatedly. In those jurisdictions where detailed studies are made of violent deaths, it is known that well over half of all fatally injured drivers had been drinking; among drivers found to be responsible for the fatal crash, two-thirds

*This article originally appeared in 201 JAMA 861 (1967) and is reproduced by permission of the Journal of the American Medical Association and H. Emerson Campbell, M.D.

had been drinking, and in the one-car fatal crashes, seven out of ten had been drinking.1, 2

But again we must push back farther to a more basic question, and ask, "What kind of drinking?" Millions of people have been drinking and driving for years and have not died yet.

In the Haddon and Bradess study 2 of 83 drivers killed in one-car crashes, 49% were found to have blood alcohol levels of 0.15% or more at death, and 20% had levels between 0.05% and 0.15%. Only 3.6% had blood alcohol levels below 0.05%. In Manhattan, McCarroll and Haddon 3 found that 73% of drivers deemed responsible for fatal accidents had been drinking, 46% had blood alcohol levels of 250 mg/100 ml and over, and 19% had levels between 20 and 250 mg/100 ml. Thus drinking drivers responsible for fatal accidents most often have higher blood alcohol levels.

Norway, in 1926, passed a law which Max Eastman says would clear the roads in most

4

1. "Alcohol-A Leading Factor in Fatal Accidents," in Smith, S. (ed.): Accident Facts, Chicago: National Safety Council, 1965, p 52.

2. Haddon, W., Jr., and Bradess, V. A.: Alcohol in the Single Vehicle Fatal Accident: Experience of Westchester County New York, JAMA 169: 1587-1593 (April 4) 1959.

3. McCarroll, J. R., and Haddon, W. A.: A Controlled Study of Fatal Automobile Accidents in New York City, J. Chronic Dis 15:811-826 (Aug) 1962.

4. Eastman, M.: Norway-The Home of the Viking Spirit, Reader's Digest 70: 197-204 (June) 1957.