[Evenstar]

Originally Posted by Woodsy

Evenstar...
Bone up on your facts before you make blanket statements. As with any type of vehicular accident, Boat speeds ARE ALWAYS GIVEN in an accident. They may be estimated as in the case of Littlefield/Hartman, or they may be known as in the video posted by APS. But they ARE ALWAYS LISTED in the official accident report!

By “USCG accident reports”, I was referring the USCG boating statistics, which don’t include any specific speeds – sorry, my mistake for using the wrong terms. But, even so, have you looked at ALL the NH boating accident reports which involved a fatality? And, if speeds are just estimated how can know that none of these boats were traveling at speeds above 45mph?

There’s nothing at all false about my statement. There would likely be more fatalities if smaller and/or slower boats weren’t afraid to go out on the main lake.

I most certainly can use the number of registered boats in the statistics. It is the standard set by and used by the USCG and NHMP. Sorry if you don't like using official government numbers. If you understood math & statistics, you would know that not having to register your kayak works to your favor. If we added another 50,000 or so canoes & kayaks to the registration numbers the death rate per 100,000 boats in NH would be even less.

I actually know way more about math and statistics than you think. Statistics are meaningless unless the data is the same. In NH, boat registration includes sailboats and sailboards (over 12 feet long), and any vessel with a motor (even canoes with an electric motor), while some states only require that motorboats be registered.

Plus you're comparing states that have a much longer boating season than what we have in NH.

The other problem is that the USCG estimates that only about 10% of all boating accidents are actually reported. Some states do a much better job than others and report a much higher percentage of their boating accidents. So NH’s lower numbers could be nothing more than NH’s poor job of reporting accidents.

Personally I don’t see that NH’s boating accident numbers are very good.

Instead of using numbers of boats registered, try using square miles of inland water for comparison. Then you get for the years 2000 – 2004, with our neighboring states:
NH: 382 square miles and 320 accidents = 1 accident / 1.2 square miles of water
MA: 2,717 square miles and 266 accidents = 1 accident / 10.2 square miles of water
ME: 4,523 square miles and 286 accidents = 1 accident / 15.8 square miles of water
VT: 366 square miles and 28 accidents = 1 accident / 13.1 square miles of water

As for your statement quoted above I have to take a few exceptions.

Faster speeds ALWAYS increases the chance of an accident happening - Under equal conditions of course!!! I thought that last part was a given. Apparently not.


What I wrote was “higher speeds”, not excessive speeds, and not above the proposed speed limit speeds. So all my statements are true – whether you’ll admit it or not. The USCG states that many accidents have more than one factor as to the cause. You guys just love to dismiss speed as a factor whenever there’s any other possible cause given.