This week a local ship builder announced its intention with support from the Ministry of Science and Technology, to make water transport safer with "unsinkable" ships.
Sakun C Innovation, a local manufacturer of steel for use in boat-building, said it is to work with the ministry in applying state-of-the-art foam technology that can be injected into the lower part of a hull to prevent a vessel from sinking even if it is completed flooded.
The company said the foam technology will keep a boat afloat even in the event that it is completely swamped, adding the technology works for anything from five-metre-long speedboats to vessels that carry 80-100 people.
According to the company statement, the ministry wants to work in tandem to promote the use of this technology in local vessels, especially those used in the tourism sector.
"The tourism industry is one of the leading sources of revenue for the country, and therefore the use of innovation to enhance safety standards will add tremendous value to our lucrative tourism sector," said Vichian Suksoir, a deputy executive director at the National Innovation Agency. The company has international certification recognising the high standard of its manufacturing quality.
Several rightly point to the development -- and later doom -- of the British ocean liner RMS Titanic in the early 20th century. The ship's owner, the White Star Line, boasted the vessel was unsinkable which proved to be untrue when it hit an iceberg a few days after leaving Southampton on her maiden voyage on April 10 1912. The tragedy was one of the world's worst maritime disasters, with more than 1,500 deaths.
Many observers see Sakun C's claim as a response to the boat tragedy in the touristy province of Phuket last week when a diving boat called the Phoenix capsized in a storm last Thursday about seven nautical miles off Chalong Bay in Muang district, killing several dozen people.
Two people are still unaccounted for. Another boat and a jet ski also sank that day, and it's fortunate that rescue workers pulled the victims of those sinkings alive from the rough seas.
The use of technology to improve safety is laudable. But it is wrong or missing the point to boast about technology when you have cases that involve human error such as recklessness -- the common cause of accidents in this country including the Phuket boat tragedy.
The owners of the Phoenix deserve to be condemned for ignoring the weather conditions and warnings and putting to sea, while nearly all other local boat operators and fishermen exercised caution and stayed in port.
The tourism boom in this province has seen some operators irresponsibly place money before safety and wrongfully compromise public safety by going out to sea in rough conditions, while the authorities fail to stop them.
Worse still, the probe into last week's tragedy found that the Phoenix did not meet safety standards. The water pump was too small and other equipment was of poor quality.
The public expect investigators to expand their probe to see how the company managed to obtain an operating licence in the first place and how it had documents renewed each year without any officials seeing any problem.
Something is terribly wrong with a registration process that allows substandard boats to serve the public.
Innovations to make things safer or more comfortable are welcome but this does not mean it gives the authorities and law enforcers an excuse to be negligent and allow operators to violate safety standards, or maritime transport will remain unsafe.
State officials must realise complacency can be dangerous. They must dismiss any ideas that encourage human error and recklessness.