DON'T JUMP: A man was hurt last year leaping from Durdle Door.
LIVES are at risk around the Dorset coastline as swimmers, boat owners and beach-goers ignore warnings.
Coastguards say "tombstoning", poor parking and lack of safety equipment on boats is causing great concern at the start of the season.
Now they have issued warnings in a bid to save lives this summer.
Tombstoning, which involves diving or jumping off piers or cliffs into the sea, claimed its first victim of the year in Hampshire last week when a man broke his neck diving into shallow water - he may never walk again.
And on Sunday, tragedy struck in Cornwall when 25-year-old Steven Andrews was left paralysed from the neck down after leaping 25 feet off a cliff into just three feet of water.
Pip Hall, Coastguard East Dorset sector manager, said piers at Bournemouth, Boscombe and Swanage are popular locations for the dangerous activity, as are cliffs along the Purbeck coast.
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"Boscombe is particularly dangerous since the end of the pier was removed" said Mr Hall. "A sandbank has built up there and the water is very shallow. No one should ever dive or jump into the sea because they don't know what's under the water."
Mr Hall said bad parking at Studland is also causing problems with emergency vehicles unable to get to and from the ferry.
Boat users are causing concern by failing to carry appropriate flares and other safety equipment, relying instead on mobile phones.
Coastguards have warned that signals are not available in many areas, particularly more than two miles off the coast.
"We want people to enjoy themselves but we are urging them to take care," added Mr Hall.
Posted by: nickboy, West London on 8:52am Thu 15 May 08
There will always be idiots who risk their lives this way. I was at Lulworth Cove last Sunday, walked up to look at Stair Hole, only to find a group of people who had gone over the barriers and were having a barbeque right on the cliff edge !
Despite it being clearly marked as dangerous, these fools just didn't care. Of course, if anything had happened to them, they would be blaming everyone else but themselves.
There will always be idiots who risk their lives this way. I was at Lulworth Cove last Sunday, walked up to look at Stair Hole, only to find a group of people who had gone over the barriers and were having a barbeque right on the cliff edge !
Despite it being clearly marked as dangerous, these fools just didn't care. Of course, if anything had happened to them, they would be blaming everyone else but themselves.
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