Rantz: Majority of Ride the Ducks violations wouldn’t scare me away

Of the 463 safety violations a famous Seattle tour company admitted to, the majority of those violations aren’t substantial enough to cause alarm, KIRO Radio’s Jason Rantz says.

It’s important to remember that 304 of the 463 violations Ride the Ducks admitted to are related to record keeping, Rantz says. That includes the company failing to include the date of birth for all employee applications.

Related: Seattle tour group admits safety violations, to pay $222K

“Yes, there is a reason this is a rule,” Rantz says. “But might I say, if someone got hit with this, and this is the only violation they received, I would say, ‘hey, Joe or Jane, Ride the Ducks got hit with not writing down the birth date of drivers … and they most likely wouldn’t be concerned.”

“If you tell me that, I’m not necessarily saying, ‘oh, boy, I went on Ride the Ducks the other day; I really dodged a bullet on that one. That thing could have crashed at any moment.”

Of course, other violations are more severe. And those other 159 violations were “acute or critical to protecting public safety,” according to the state’s Utilities and Transportation Commission. However, Rantz points out, none are directly related to the crash on the Aurora Bridge that killed five international college students.

Rantz says he isn’t scared out of his mind as a result of the violations.

“There’s no pattern of violations at all having to do with this,” Rantz says. “These are just violations because they didn’t keep records straight and did have some critical safety violations.”

Ride the Ducks has agreed to pay $222,000 in penalties to settle the state’s complaint. Although $111,600 in fines related to record keeping is suspended, as long as the company can keep up with testing requirements for two years.

The agreement will go before a three-member commission.