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Originally Posted by Mee-n-Mac
And at the risk of being called tiresome and a quibbler, what makes 25 so safe and 28 not ? If I find a single accident (? need it be fatal ?) at a speed under 25, can I then claim that 25 is too high and the speed limit should be lower ? How can coming up behind a boat at a closing speed under (or just over) the proposed limit be unsafe while a head on situation, where the closing speed would be legal at 50, be safe ? Can you at least understand why I and others find this such a difficult concept to grasp ? Why we think that Littlefield is not speed related ?
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Who says 25 mph was safe that night? Certainly not me!
You are forgetting that under HB162 the night speed limit will NOT be 25 mph. The speed limit will essentially be reasonable and prudent but never more than 25 mph.
As I remember it was a warm moonless night with lots of boat traffic. Perhaps reasonable and prudent under those conditions was 10 or 20 mph. Perhaps reasonable and prudent was 14 mph and the boat was doing twice the speed limit.
In a similar, future, fatal accident with the boat going 20 mph, the question for the jury will be if 20 mph was reasonable and prudent under the existing conditions.
X.(a) No person shall operate a vessel at a speed greater than is reasonable and prudent under the existing conditions and without regard for the actual and potential hazards then existing. In all cases, speed shall be controlled so that the operator will be able to avoid endangering or colliding with any person, vessel, object, or shore.