Seminar Advantage and Disadvantage Essay Example for Free

Seminar Advantage and Disadvantage Essay * The advantage in preparing your seminar in two months prior to your seminar is that you can prepare everything with excellence because you have a lot of time to prepare. * You have a lot of time to locate a good venue, decide a design so that can capture the audience interest by seeing the area so relaxing and refreshing. * Whatever food you plan to fix, try to keep to the middle of the road in your selections of what to fix. Think of the food not only for its basic food value but for how much enjoyment it will give in the eating of it. Once you have your menus made, purchase all of your groceries that can bought ahead * You can also get a very good speaker or host in your seminar * You can decide how many audience you are going to invite, and what your target market are. * You also have a lot of time to expand your prospective list. DISADVANTAGE * The disadvantage of this longer preparation is that there is a tendency that you are going to change everything of what you have planned earlier, because of changing of your plan every day to make your seminar beautiful until the day will come. ADVANTAGE IN SIX WEEK PRIOR TO YOUR SEMINAR * The advantage in this stage is you can allocate more of your time to perform what is your task in this period. * Make sure that your invitation card is amazing and creative. This time, you can change anytime your invitations if there is a computer error in your invitation. * You should check how obtaining and testimonial the speaker is, it is for you to know how effective he is as a speaker so that the audience will digest the agenda of your seminar clearly. * Preparing your agenda to cannot commit mistake in front of the audience. * You must check your site for the temperature problems, check the average of your sets, room type and shape of the area, for the finalization of the set ups of the venue. DISADVANTAGE * The disadvantage of this week there’s so many seminars are marvelously full of content but somehow more difficult to digest because there is one  keynote in the introduction by the speakers and the subjects is common chain of reasoning or unified body with perhaps many details but one overriding theme. ADVANTAGE IN THREE WEEKS PRIOR TO YOUR SEMINAR * The advantage of this week you will know that if they are available and interested in your seminar. * Distributing your list of potential attendees will shorten the time for you to look for an audience. * You have a little more time to develop your list of audience if the other response that they cannot come to the seminar. * You have a chance to convince the audience to attend the seminar by calling them. * By having the tarpaulin, media, and brochures, you do not need to come to that person and convince them to attend the seminar. * People will come and have a registration if they are interested. DISADVANTAGE * The disadvantage is that there’s an audience will refuse your invitation and there are times the publicity you made is not that effective most specially if you are lack of finance in conducting your seminar or your publication is too plain to get the attention of an audience to be in your seminar. TWO WEEKS PRIOR TO YOUR SEMINAR * The advantage of this week is that you have final attendees in your list. * The thing to do is to send them letter to confirm if ever they change their mind, you still have time to look for a replacement. * Obtain the material for presentation to prevent problems. * Create evaluation sheet and checklist for attendees in advance, for the event come the list is prepared. * Create a certification or token in advance to prevent hassle. DISADVANTAGE * The disadvantage of this week, you do not have much time to handle a big problems is there is, must especially in the venue. ADVANTAGE IN THREE DAYS PRIOR TO YOUR SEMINAR * This week you have a confirm attendees on your list book and you will instruct them where the venue is, what time it will be and the registration fee. * The event you are planning is well prepared and done. DISADVANTAGE * You do not have time if there will be an audience to back out. In venue, materials, invitation, token problems etc. there is no more time to fix.

Effect of temperature on rate of reaction :: GCSE Chemistry Coursework Investigation

Effect of temperature on rate of reaction Aim: To find out if the temperature increases the rate of reaction of two chemicals. Prediction: My prediction is that the higher the temperature is the faster the rate of the reaction will be. Equipment: Hot water, thermometer, flask, cold water, stopwatch, tissue paper, paper with ‘X’ marked on it, safety glasses, measuring cylinder, large beaker, sodium thiosulphate, hydrochloric acid. Method: The experiment has to be done five times for the five different temperatures of the sodium thiosulphate. The temperatures are: 20 °C, 30 °C, 40 °C, 50 °C and 60 °C To start the experiments fill the flask with 50cm ³ of sodium thiosulphate into the large beaker. Fill the large beaker up with the water of right temperature that is required for the experiment. Put the thermometer into the flask with sodium thiosulphate and check the temperature is right for the experiment. If the water is too cold, in the large beaker pour in some more hot water or if it is too hot pour in some cold water to reach the required temperature for the sodium thiosulphate. Once the sodium thiosulphate is the right temperature, take it out of the water, wipe the bottom of the flask with tissue paper and place it onto the piece of paper with ‘X’ marked on it. Now measure 5cm ³ of hydrochloric acid in the measuring cylinder. Then pour the hydrochloric acid into the sodium thiosulphate, at this moment start timing with the stopwatch and keep timing until you cannot see the ‘X’ mark through the liquid. Make sure you wear safety glasses and handle the acid carefully. Fair Test: To make this investigation fair you have to make sure you use the same concentration of hydrochloric acid for all experiments. You also have to make sure you use the same amount of hydrochloric acid and sodium thiosulphate for all the experiments. Also make sure you time the experiments accurately. Observation: My observation was that when the temperature of the sodium thiosulphate was higher the solution turned cloudy quicker. Results: -------------------------------------------- Temperature ( °C) Time for cross to disappear (minutes) 20 2.49 30 1.

The Death Penalty

The Death Penalty â€Å"If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call. † (McAdams) The death penalty should be legalized in all fifty states, to avert from crime, keep repeat offenders off of the streets, and to reduce taxpayers the cost of keeping those found guilty of heinous crimes in prison low. The death penalty can in fact deter heinous crimes from being committed when it is lawful in a state. Social scientists have stated that the act of general deterrence, which is when the punishment deters potential criminals from committing crimes, keeps criminals from going through with crimes. However, it is more shown that premeditated crimes are usually the ones stopped by general deterrence, not crimes under passion. Heinous crimes have been reduced highly in the states that have a capital punishment law. The death penalty keeps repeat offenders off of the streets. In Michigan a case that represents this happened; â€Å"A man who was hired by Honeywell Inc. , after serving four years in prison for strangling a co-worker has been charged with killing another co-worker and a woman he allegedly stalked and threatened for weeks† (Sullum personal file). Had the death penalty been allowed in Michigan the woman’s life could have been sparred, for the male who murdered her would have been executed long before and never had the chance to murder her. The death penalty may be a long process, but it does not give those on death row a hope of parole. By having the heinous criminals in prisons on death row keeps them from repeating crimes. In five out of seven cases it is said that criminals will once again commit crimes once released from prison of jail. The death penalty keeps the criminals in jail and executes them. This protects the general public from murderous crimes from repeat offenders. The death penalty also keeps taxpayers costs low, because the prison looses members in which the state taxes would have to pay for. The citizens of the state pay for the prisoners, and my eliminating the criminals jailed for heinous crimes reduces cost by a high percent. The average cost per year per prison is about $1 billion. By enforcing the death penalty and making it lawful can reduce that cost by almost half. Half does not sound like much in such large terms, but in reality it is an immense amount of money that the taxpayers can be using somewhere else. Struggling families still have to pay for imprisoned criminals and the death penalty can in turn have more money in that home, because it would not be put towards the prison. There is another side to the death penalty, however. Most people believe the death penalty is immoral and unjust. Some say that the idea of â€Å"an eye for an eye† should not apply to the death penalty. Capital punishment is still an act of murder, which is punishable by law. This is a major argument of those against capital punishment. There are also religious views that keep many opposed of the death penalty. Christians view the death penalty as wrong because of the fact that killing a killer is still killing, which is a sin that breaks one of the Ten Commandments. The large population of Christians in the United States keeps the vote against capital punishment high, because this nation was built on that faith and it is also the highest religion in the nation. The death penalty keeps taxpayers cost low, keeps repeat offenders off of the street, and deters heinous crime, and therefore should be made lawful in all fifty states of the United States of America. The Death Penalty The Death Penalty: It is Never Justified A young man has been charged with the brutal murder of a seventeen year old girl after raping and mutilating her body. This crime was so heinous and unthinkable that the only punishment that seems to fit the crime is capital punishment; there is merely one problem†the man convicted is innocent. The public is so caught up in bringing Justice to the murdered girl that through capital punishment more injustice is brought into the world and the life of another innocent being is taken. There is no going back and undoing the mistake.There is no undoing in the matter of death. The accidental murder of an innocent person through the death penalty is Just one way in which the death penalty is a completely unethical, flawed, and unjustified form of punishment. Problems associated with the death penalty such as it being inhumane, discriminatory, and an unfair form of punishment, are reasons that capital punishment is never the answer to aggravated murder [claim]. The death penalty is extremely inhumane. Three common techniques used to perform the sentence include the electric chair, gas chambers, and lethal injection.Supporters of the death penalty argue that modern science has eliminated the factor of pain by lethal injection [rebuttal], but how can this truly be proved? The scientific journal the Nature Publishing Group [backing] reported that almost half the prisoners are still conscious although paralyzed during the lethal injection as the drug stops the heart. The NPG then goes on to state, â€Å"If suitably qualified individuals refuse to help prepare a new protocol, the state will face the prospect of continuing to use amateurs to kill people with arbitrary and outmoded technology' (â€Å"Amateur† 2) [evidence].Dying is a painful thing. The punishment of death is already extreme, but the fact that the prisoner is being put down with chemicals that aren't even provided by physicians or scientists is cruel and la cks any compassion. Andrew Stephen, the United States editor of the New Statesman magazine which reports on current affairs, [backing] also explained the inhumanity of the most humane form of capital punishment: lethal injection. Stephen explained how the potassium chloride used in the injection causes excruciating pain as it makes its way through the veins and into the heart to kill the person.Stephen follows this by stating, â€Å"The American Veterinary Medical Association even issued guidelines in 2002 saying that the mix was unacceptable for putting dogs and cats, let alone humans, to sleep† (Stephen 33) [evidence]. How can a democracy in the U. S. which stands for Justice possibly support this blatantly inhumane form of punishment that isn't even suitable for animals? There is no way to properly kill a human being, it is immoral and unjust not matter who it is done to, and therefore does not hold a place in the U. S. Jurisdiction.The death penalty can also be very arbit rary or random in the sense that there is ot a set standard for everyone who commits murder to be sentenced to death. It makes little sense how some prisoners who are convicted of terrible murders get the privilege of living while others who did not murder in cold blood do not get the opportunity for rehabilitation and redemption. The cause of such arbitrariness can be attributed to discrimination. David Bruck, who was a Harvard and University of South Carolina graduate, served as a lawyer detending those charged witn capita punishment [backing].Bruck illustrates how unfair capital punishment is in an essay he wrote for The New Republic magazine. Bruck explains how a man from Louisiana named Ernest Knighton killed a gas station owner while robbing the gas station. This is of course a terrible crime; however, the crime was not premeditated and pales in comparison to other gruesome murders, yet somehow Knighton was chosen to be executed. This may be explained by the fact that Knighton was black, the victim was white, the Jury at his hearing was entirely white, and he lacked sufficient defense.In other words, discrimination was a factor. Bruck explains this execution by stating, â€Å"Ernest Knighton was picked out to die the way a fisherman takes a cricket out of a ait Jar. No one cares which cricket gets impaled on the hook† (Bruck NPA) [evidence]. There were clearly more threatening murderers out there than Knighton, but Knighton was chosen to die. The chance that this kind of discrimination will continue is entirely possible [modal qualifier] and illustrates the faults in the system of capital punishment.However, in cases such as capital punishment where death is involved, there is no room for faults. Life is a precious gift not to be taken lightly. Money also seems to be a discriminatory factor in the death penalty, as rich eople are more likely to avoid the death penalty than are poor people who cannot afford proper defense. A rich murderer's life is no more valuable than the life of a poor murderer, yet the chance of survival for a poor man is much lower than that of a rich man. This harsh fact is unfair.Scott Phillips author for the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology [backing] writes, â€Å"As Former Supreme Court Justice William Douglas, for example, noted: ‘One searches our chronicles in vain for the execution of any member of the affluent strata of this society† (Phillips 718) [evidence]. It is efinitely plausible [modal qualifier] that the people who have money are the ones who can afford the best defense and therefore avoid the death penalty. It hardly seems fair that the rich get to live over the poor not because of innocence, but because of the size of their wallets.Two wrongs do not make a right under the conditions of murder. The system of capital punishment is obviously defective as it discriminates and seemingly picks its victims at random, risking the possibility of killing even the innocent. Advoc ates of the death penalty argue that it is the only form of punishment that is orthy of murder [rebuttal]. This is an â€Å"eye for an eye† mentality. Edward Koch, the former mayor of New York [backing], supported this mentality by stating, â€Å".. it can be easily demonstrated that the death penalty strengthens the value of human life. If the penalty for rape were lowered, clearly it would signal a lessened regard for the victim's suffering.. .When we lower the penalty for murder, it signals a lessened regard for the value of the victim's life† (Koch NPA) [evidence]. Koch's statement is a fallacy of a false analogy and is therefore not plausible [modal qualifier]. No two rimes can really be compared to each other. Rape and murder are admittedly two very horrific offenses, but are in no way the same.We do not rape the criminals charged of rape to show them how it feels, nor should we kill the criminals charged of murder. Killing the prisoner makes us no better than th e prisoner himself. Instead of capital punishment, there should be harsher punishments in Jail for those convicted of murder, Just as those convicted of rape have harsher punishments than those convicted ot tnett. Another argument supporters of the death penalty like to utilize is that killing a uman being is okay because it is done by the state, which has more rights, rather than an individual [rebuttal].Koch makes the point when he writes, â€Å"The execution of a lawfully condemned killer is no more an act of murder than is legal imprisonment an act of kidnapping†¦ Rights and responsibilities surrendered by the individual are what give the state the power to govern† ( Koch NPA) [evidence]. This is once again a fallacy of a false analogy. Of course legal imprisonment is not kidnapping, because it is an agreed upon punishment by the people of a democracy for those who have roken the laws of society. On the contrary, capital punishment is not entirely agreed upon because this punishment is too harsh.Capital punishment is not necessary to govern its people; if the state must resort to the killing of individuals by the death penalty which has already been proven faulty, there are greater issues at hand. In the end, those who wish for capital punishment aren't really wishing for Justice, or to keep order. Justice and order can be achieved with without the killing of prisoners. It is rather unjust to inflict the death penalty, its only purpose to serve as a orm of bitter revenge that one can only hope will avenge the death of the lost person.However, it is not the place of the state to take revenge, but to bring Justice. Justice needs to be fair, humane, morally sound, and it needs to be reasonable. The death penalty in no way fits into any of those descriptions. This is a topic that should concern everyone. If the people of the United States allow for the death penalty, and the legal system makes a completely possible and at some point probable [modal qualifier] mistake and wrongfully sentences an innocent man to death, that death is on each and every person who advocates the death penalty. The Death Penalty The Death Penalty: It is Never Justified A young man has been charged with the brutal murder of a seventeen year old girl after raping and mutilating her body. This crime was so heinous and unthinkable that the only punishment that seems to fit the crime is capital punishment; there is merely one problem†the man convicted is innocent. The public is so caught up in bringing Justice to the murdered girl that through capital punishment more injustice is brought into the world and the life of another innocent being is taken. There is no going back and undoing the mistake.There is no undoing in the matter of death. The accidental murder of an innocent person through the death penalty is Just one way in which the death penalty is a completely unethical, flawed, and unjustified form of punishment. Problems associated with the death penalty such as it being inhumane, discriminatory, and an unfair form of punishment, are reasons that capital punishment is never the answer to aggravated murder [claim]. The death penalty is extremely inhumane. Three common techniques used to perform the sentence include the electric chair, gas chambers, and lethal injection.Supporters of the death penalty argue that modern science has eliminated the factor of pain by lethal injection [rebuttal], but how can this truly be proved? The scientific journal the Nature Publishing Group [backing] reported that almost half the prisoners are still conscious although paralyzed during the lethal injection as the drug stops the heart. The NPG then goes on to state, â€Å"If suitably qualified individuals refuse to help prepare a new protocol, the state will face the prospect of continuing to use amateurs to kill people with arbitrary and outmoded technology' (â€Å"Amateur† 2) [evidence].Dying is a painful thing. The punishment of death is already extreme, but the fact that the prisoner is being put down with chemicals that aren't even provided by physicians or scientists is cruel and la cks any compassion. Andrew Stephen, the United States editor of the New Statesman magazine which reports on current affairs, [backing] also explained the inhumanity of the most humane form of capital punishment: lethal injection. Stephen explained how the potassium chloride used in the injection causes excruciating pain as it makes its way through the veins and into the heart to kill the person.Stephen follows this by stating, â€Å"The American Veterinary Medical Association even issued guidelines in 2002 saying that the mix was unacceptable for putting dogs and cats, let alone humans, to sleep† (Stephen 33) [evidence]. How can a democracy in the U. S. which stands for Justice possibly support this blatantly inhumane form of punishment that isn't even suitable for animals? There is no way to properly kill a human being, it is immoral and unjust not matter who it is done to, and therefore does not hold a place in the U. S. Jurisdiction.The death penalty can also be very arbit rary or random in the sense that there is ot a set standard for everyone who commits murder to be sentenced to death. It makes little sense how some prisoners who are convicted of terrible murders get the privilege of living while others who did not murder in cold blood do not get the opportunity for rehabilitation and redemption. The cause of such arbitrariness can be attributed to discrimination. David Bruck, who was a Harvard and University of South Carolina graduate, served as a lawyer detending those charged witn capita punishment [backing].Bruck illustrates how unfair capital punishment is in an essay he wrote for The New Republic magazine. Bruck explains how a man from Louisiana named Ernest Knighton killed a gas station owner while robbing the gas station. This is of course a terrible crime; however, the crime was not premeditated and pales in comparison to other gruesome murders, yet somehow Knighton was chosen to be executed. This may be explained by the fact that Knighton was black, the victim was white, the Jury at his hearing was entirely white, and he lacked sufficient defense.In other words, discrimination was a factor. Bruck explains this execution by stating, â€Å"Ernest Knighton was picked out to die the way a fisherman takes a cricket out of a ait Jar. No one cares which cricket gets impaled on the hook† (Bruck NPA) [evidence]. There were clearly more threatening murderers out there than Knighton, but Knighton was chosen to die. The chance that this kind of discrimination will continue is entirely possible [modal qualifier] and illustrates the faults in the system of capital punishment.However, in cases such as capital punishment where death is involved, there is no room for faults. Life is a precious gift not to be taken lightly. Money also seems to be a discriminatory factor in the death penalty, as rich eople are more likely to avoid the death penalty than are poor people who cannot afford proper defense. A rich murderer's life is no more valuable than the life of a poor murderer, yet the chance of survival for a poor man is much lower than that of a rich man. This harsh fact is unfair.Scott Phillips author for the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology [backing] writes, â€Å"As Former Supreme Court Justice William Douglas, for example, noted: ‘One searches our chronicles in vain for the execution of any member of the affluent strata of this society† (Phillips 718) [evidence]. It is efinitely plausible [modal qualifier] that the people who have money are the ones who can afford the best defense and therefore avoid the death penalty. It hardly seems fair that the rich get to live over the poor not because of innocence, but because of the size of their wallets.Two wrongs do not make a right under the conditions of murder. The system of capital punishment is obviously defective as it discriminates and seemingly picks its victims at random, risking the possibility of killing even the innocent. Advoc ates of the death penalty argue that it is the only form of punishment that is orthy of murder [rebuttal]. This is an â€Å"eye for an eye† mentality. Edward Koch, the former mayor of New York [backing], supported this mentality by stating, â€Å".. it can be easily demonstrated that the death penalty strengthens the value of human life. If the penalty for rape were lowered, clearly it would signal a lessened regard for the victim's suffering.. .When we lower the penalty for murder, it signals a lessened regard for the value of the victim's life† (Koch NPA) [evidence]. Koch's statement is a fallacy of a false analogy and is therefore not plausible [modal qualifier]. No two rimes can really be compared to each other. Rape and murder are admittedly two very horrific offenses, but are in no way the same.We do not rape the criminals charged of rape to show them how it feels, nor should we kill the criminals charged of murder. Killing the prisoner makes us no better than th e prisoner himself. Instead of capital punishment, there should be harsher punishments in Jail for those convicted of murder, Just as those convicted of rape have harsher punishments than those convicted ot tnett. Another argument supporters of the death penalty like to utilize is that killing a uman being is okay because it is done by the state, which has more rights, rather than an individual [rebuttal].Koch makes the point when he writes, â€Å"The execution of a lawfully condemned killer is no more an act of murder than is legal imprisonment an act of kidnapping†¦ Rights and responsibilities surrendered by the individual are what give the state the power to govern† ( Koch NPA) [evidence]. This is once again a fallacy of a false analogy. Of course legal imprisonment is not kidnapping, because it is an agreed upon punishment by the people of a democracy for those who have roken the laws of society. On the contrary, capital punishment is not entirely agreed upon because this punishment is too harsh.Capital punishment is not necessary to govern its people; if the state must resort to the killing of individuals by the death penalty which has already been proven faulty, there are greater issues at hand. In the end, those who wish for capital punishment aren't really wishing for Justice, or to keep order. Justice and order can be achieved with without the killing of prisoners. It is rather unjust to inflict the death penalty, its only purpose to serve as a orm of bitter revenge that one can only hope will avenge the death of the lost person.However, it is not the place of the state to take revenge, but to bring Justice. Justice needs to be fair, humane, morally sound, and it needs to be reasonable. The death penalty in no way fits into any of those descriptions. This is a topic that should concern everyone. If the people of the United States allow for the death penalty, and the legal system makes a completely possible and at some point probable [modal qualifier] mistake and wrongfully sentences an innocent man to death, that death is on each and every person who advocates the death penalty. The Death Penalty The Death Penalty â€Å"If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call. † (McAdams) The death penalty should be legalized in all fifty states, to avert from crime, keep repeat offenders off of the streets, and to reduce taxpayers the cost of keeping those found guilty of heinous crimes in prison low. The death penalty can in fact deter heinous crimes from being committed when it is lawful in a state. Social scientists have stated that the act of general deterrence, which is when the punishment deters potential criminals from committing crimes, keeps criminals from going through with crimes. However, it is more shown that premeditated crimes are usually the ones stopped by general deterrence, not crimes under passion. Heinous crimes have been reduced highly in the states that have a capital punishment law. The death penalty keeps repeat offenders off of the streets. In Michigan a case that represents this happened; â€Å"A man who was hired by Honeywell Inc. , after serving four years in prison for strangling a co-worker has been charged with killing another co-worker and a woman he allegedly stalked and threatened for weeks† (Sullum personal file). Had the death penalty been allowed in Michigan the woman’s life could have been sparred, for the male who murdered her would have been executed long before and never had the chance to murder her. The death penalty may be a long process, but it does not give those on death row a hope of parole. By having the heinous criminals in prisons on death row keeps them from repeating crimes. In five out of seven cases it is said that criminals will once again commit crimes once released from prison of jail. The death penalty keeps the criminals in jail and executes them. This protects the general public from murderous crimes from repeat offenders. The death penalty also keeps taxpayers costs low, because the prison looses members in which the state taxes would have to pay for. The citizens of the state pay for the prisoners, and my eliminating the criminals jailed for heinous crimes reduces cost by a high percent. The average cost per year per prison is about $1 billion. By enforcing the death penalty and making it lawful can reduce that cost by almost half. Half does not sound like much in such large terms, but in reality it is an immense amount of money that the taxpayers can be using somewhere else. Struggling families still have to pay for imprisoned criminals and the death penalty can in turn have more money in that home, because it would not be put towards the prison. There is another side to the death penalty, however. Most people believe the death penalty is immoral and unjust. Some say that the idea of â€Å"an eye for an eye† should not apply to the death penalty. Capital punishment is still an act of murder, which is punishable by law. This is a major argument of those against capital punishment. There are also religious views that keep many opposed of the death penalty. Christians view the death penalty as wrong because of the fact that killing a killer is still killing, which is a sin that breaks one of the Ten Commandments. The large population of Christians in the United States keeps the vote against capital punishment high, because this nation was built on that faith and it is also the highest religion in the nation. The death penalty keeps taxpayers cost low, keeps repeat offenders off of the street, and deters heinous crime, and therefore should be made lawful in all fifty states of the United States of America.

Maritime Traffic Lanes

Traffic is controlled in coastal waters and inland passages with marker buoys. Buoys in coastal areas are known as lateral markers and when found in traffic lanes they are known as channel markers. Both types of markers serve the same purpose. They guide a vessel through an area known to be safe for passage, and provide a traffic separation scheme similar to a road on land. These â€Å"Rules of the Road† are very similar to those you follow while driving an automobile on land, so we will use that as an example when talking about marine traffic. IALA A and IALA B If you are driving a car in an overseas country it is sometimes necessary to drive on the opposite side of the road than you usually do. This is the same for ships, but fortunately there are only two schemes IALA A and IALA B. IALA stands for International Association of Lighthouse Authorities. IALA A is used in Europe, some areas of Africa, most of Asia, plus Australia and New Zealand. IALA B is used in North America, South America, Japan, the Philippines, and Korea. Traffic Marker Buoys Marker buoys come in two colors, green and red. Red buoys mark one side of a traffic lane and green marks the other side. Think of the area in the middle as a road or highway. On land a road has painted stripes marking safe areas for travel; a solid line marks both sides of the road and is meant not to be crossed—think of the red and green buoys as these lines. A road has a line painted in the middle to divide traffic by direction; in a maritime environment the center divider is invisible. The separation line is exactly in the center of the marked course. IALA A Rules In Europe, Australia, New Zealand, plus parts of Africa and Asia, the IALA A rules are in force. This means that when traveling you should keep the green buoy on the right or starboard side of the vessel. The shape of the marker also gives you traffic information. A triangular or cone-shaped top indicates the marker should be kept on the starboard side of the vessel. IALA B Rules The IALA B traffic separation scheme is used in North and South America, Japan, the Philippines, and Korea. It is the opposite traffic flow of the IALA A scheme. This is like driving on the opposite side of the road while overseas. In this case, while traveling keep the red buoy on the right or starboard side of the vessel. The same triangular or cone-shaped top will be present on markers which should be kept on the starboard side of the vessel. Both traffic patterns have the same rules when it comes to marker shape. A triangular marker is always kept on the starboard side of the vessel no matter if it is red or green. Markers to the port side of the vessel will be square or flat-topped. Entering and Exiting Traffic Separation Schemes When entering a traffic separation area, proceed with caution and be alert. This is like a highway on-ramp for ships and smaller craft. At busy times many vessels will be trying to enter these lanes. Try to align your vessel in the direction of travel within the lane. Essentially extending the lane beyond the actual lane markers will help you smoothly transition from open waters to the traffic lane. The entrance to a traffic separation scheme is subject to rules of Right of Way. The Right of Way is one of the most important parts of the Rules of the Road and needs to be understood completely for safe operation. Sometimes automobile traffic in busy areas takes on a special set of rules that is different from standard operation, and is usually only understood by local drivers. The same thing is true on the water. Local vessels like water taxis or tender boats might not follow these traffic lanes, this is not necessarily breaking the rules because the vessels need to operate outside the lanes to do their job. Exiting a traffic scheme is similar to entering. If you are traveling out into open water it is best to extend your heading past the end of the final marker. If your vessel is large or slow moving, traffic behind your vessel might be eager to pass. Wait until traffic clears before changing your course because not all vessels will sound the proper horn signal when attempting to pass. Be careful, Right of Way is important, but avoiding collision is more important than being right. You may need to exit a traffic lane before reaching the end of the marked passage to reach your destination. Buoys are marked with numbers like street numbers. Red buoys always have an even number and green are marked with odd numbers. Maneuvering between marker buoys is acceptable as long as it can be done safely. Check for traffic outside the lane and for any orange and white buoys marking obstructions. If the way is clear you may proceed. If you must cross the oncoming lane of traffic, wait for an appropriate gap in traffic and turn a perpendicular course across the lane. Keep other vessels in mind when slowing down or turning out of a lane. Ships have limited maneuverability at low speeds and take a long time to stop. If you cannot turn across a lane without obstructing traffic, exit on the opposite side and wait for traffic to clear then proceed across both lanes to your destination. Traffic Lane Crossings Where two traffic lanes cross there is a special marker buoy. It is striped horizontally with red and green bands. This is similar to an intersection of a primary and secondary road. The top band designates the primary traffic route and the lower band designates the secondary route. Right of Way rules govern how traffic flows at these crossings—primary and secondary designations do not determine which vessel may cross first.