I loved the ducky tour of Montreal, driving through the historic old city and into the St. Laurence River for the second half of the tour. Other than these bus-boats I have never seen a civilian amphibious vehicle.

Those things are notorious death traps.

What are people expecting? They're 75yo vehicles who's capacity and seaworthiness were defined relative to very different cultural norms regarding safety and a national emergency that necessitated acceptance of some additional risk. Heck, the base truck chassis would be a workplace injury lawsuit waiting to happen by modern standards.

Other than the one that capsized in Missouri a few years back the Wikipedia page listing fatal accidents is surprisingly devoid of sinkings.

> What are people expecting?

A safe experience. There is always risk involved but floating things are a solved problem.

> They're 75yo vehicles who's capacity and seaworthiness were defined relative to very different cultural norms regarding safety and a national emergency that necessitated acceptance of some additional risk.

Duck boats are antiquated military vehicles which are modified by their owners via cutting them in half and extending them. One owner did the work himself with little to no experience in that area with zero engineering oversight. Basically the guy winged it and people died.