Pics in post 9.
Or just used a credit card that covers insurance. Most do. Some (like mine) provide primary coverage. If your card only provides secondary coverage and you don’t have your own policy, then they’re effectively primary.
Yes, that.
And one more thing - that seems extremely unsafe. Most of the ferries I’ve been on let people walk around on the car deck (some even don’t let you get off of the car deck because they want to be able to get everyone off the ferry quickly). With it just open to sea like that, a person could have fallen.
Not saying that the backpackers shouldn’t have put on the emergency brake, but it could have been less of a mistake.
I’m impressed with the float time!
That’s odd…I’ve never been on a ferry that allowed you to stay on the car deck when the boat was underway. Of course, I’ve also never been on one where the barrier was merely a net.
the Harsens Island Ferry tells you to stay in your vehicle during the ride, but it’s a really short ride…
http://www.bluewaysofstclair.org/greenways.asp?ait=av&aid=1591
You want short, try the Island airport ferry in Toronto. 121 meters, 90 seconds, free for pedestrians and $11 if bring your car. Less than a third of the Harsens Island Ferry distance.
I can say from when I lived in S Texas and went to Galveston a lot, I used the Bolivar ferry a lot to go to High Island. Its a part of the Dept of Transportation, fwiw, and free. Carries a LOT of vehicles 24/7/365 across a busy seaway to from Houston.
The ferry itself has a strong metal barricade at each end (see pics) that was raised to prevent ‘roll-offs’, and the actual ramp was part of the land-based structure. The procedure was to lower barrier once it was pushed against the tamp structure and secured and then lower ramp onto barrier, then disbark/embark. The ferry parking attendants’ would tell each vehicke to set the parking brake, but no chocking, IIRC. Been about 12-13 years since I used it so memory is a bit vague.
On one trip, there was a fast-moving huge container ship that we passed behind rather closely and went through a huge wake, Most of the vehicles bounced around more than you would expect - my car moved forward about a foot just from the bouncing, and some water even came over the bow. I was standing at front of ferry as we went over the deep troughs and you could hear the props spinning/chopping as they lost water contact. A few folks lost their footing and fell down. Everyone up front got rather wet, too, with the water coming over the barrier a bit. Quite the ride!
Without that barrier at each end, I could easily see how a vehicle or person could be rolled/tossed off with such bouncing happening (though I bet pilot was not supposed to be that close to such large ships and their wakes, of course).
One caution: if memory serves, many credit cards will cover damage to the vehicle but not loss of use, i.e., the lost revenue to the company from the car being unavailable while it is being repaired. In this instance, of course, the car was a total loss, so the point might be moot, but in other cases, reliance on the credit card’s insurance may leave a significant gap in coverage.
It looks to me that the morons pretending to be the ferry captain and crew were too lazy to raise the ramp and secure it in the raised position. See the ramp locking pin instructions? See the sea? Glub, glub, glub – morons. The driver of the 4x4 wasn’t too bright either in failing to keep it in a forward gear and engage the parking brake.
Aha! But that was the stern at the time. 
The vid would make a great advertisement for selling 4x4 extended snorkels to folks who want to keep living in Florida. 
I wasn’t trying to make it a competition.
“Initial here to waive ‘falling into the sea’ coverage.”
But, but, how can anyone win if it’s not a competition?
The three vehicle ferries I’ve been on all rely on vehicle operators to secure their vehicles: car drivers are expected to put their car in park and/or set the parking brake, and motorcycle riders are responsible for securely tying their own motorcycle to the deck (in some cases they are even required to bring their own tie-down straps). If your car rolls around or your bike tips over during the crossing, it’s your fault, and you bear liability for whatever damages are inflicted by (or to) your unsecured vehicle. I would expect no different for the ferry in the OP’s article.
As for the vehicle going into the water…I recall that when a snowmobile go into the water in Wisconsin, for environmental reasons the DNR fines you for every day your sled is submerged, making it your responsibility to extract it at your earliest convenience. if the car came off of the ferry within X miles of the island, there may be similar laws that compel prompt recovery of the vehicle to minimize environmental damage. Seems to me that that expense ought to be on the ferry operator.
I’m sure the ferry operator says that it’s not liable, but I think the question is more whether those liability waivers actually stand up if a damaged car owner’s insurance company decides to litigate. Particularly if a ferry employee actually saw that a cycle was not tied down and opted to proceed anyway, I think there’s some risk in trying to rely on that waiver if the cycle then came loose and damaged another car or killed somebody. I’m not saying that it’s a slam-dunk that the ferry is liable, just that I think there’s room for argument, especially depending on the ferry’s actual knowledge.
This is different from the mall parking lot examples, in that the mall is not undertaking to lift the parking lot and carry it somewhere else. There may well be some added level of responsibility assumed by the carrier.
I did that trip 20 years ago. Cheap and clueless backpackers rent 4x4s on the mainland and have them ferried to Fraser Island. The tour company gave minimal to no training on the vehicles (“you know how to drive? Cool, here you go.”), so I can understand the backpackers not knowing how to set the brake or put it in gear properly. The vehicles were all manual transmission back then; don’t know if they still are.
It’s a very short trip from Inskip Point to Fraser Island, maybe about 700 or 800 yards across a little channel. I haven’t been on it for a few years. Last I was on it everyone is told to set their parking brake. Actually the usual routine is that the guy who directs you in parking your vehicle says as he finishes with you “Engine off, parking brake on!” and there is a similar announcement.
The ramp should have been up no doubt but the driver was certainly at fault to some degree. If the ramp had been up the vehicle could have rolled around the deck like a bull in a china shop, hitting vehicles and potentially crushing people on deck.
The insurance position is potentially “interesting”. Most insurance even if nominally comprehensive does not cover “immersion”. What the insurance position is for these backpacker rentals I don’t know.