Transport for NSW reviewed fatality, serious injury, incident, infringement and complaints data to identify five focus safety areas for MSP 2026.

Lifejacket wear: contributes to 60.3% of recreational boating fatalities and is the most important priority issue.

Weather conditions: contributes to 22% of total boating fatality incidents

Boater age: has accounted for an increasing share of fatal incidents over time, contributes 26.7% of recreational boating fatalities

Trauma: for example, fatalities caused by excessive speed and towing safety, there has been a lack of improvement in the rate over the long term, contributes 25.2% of recreational boating fatalities

Open runabouts: this vessel type accounts for the greatest share of incidents among all vessel types and is significantly overrepresented in the incident data and contributes 31.7% of total boating fatality incidents.

Collectively these five focus areas contributed to 94.7% of all recreational boating fatalities over the 10 years to June 2020. These focus areas and stakeholder consultation have informed the development of the four priority areas of the plan.