Are you serious?
With all due respect, step 3 amounts to the inverse golden rule. You start being a jerk by questioning the officer's authority to make the stop and the officer will gladly oblige -- as is human nature -- and return in kind. I've known too many law enforcement officials to know anything other than if you help them do their job, they'll help you. But start being a pain about it and wasting their time, and any incentive to be helpful will be lost. That's the point where you get the summons or fine and they just move on. Life's too short for any of us to be dealing with jerks at work. MP is no different.
And I can't believe I'm really reading a suggestion on this forum that we should keep ships logs on the lake, make sure they are legally up to snuff, potentially engage counsel and, IMO, foster an adversarial us vs. them mentality with Marine Patrol.
If you're doing what you're supposed to be doing then MP just becomes another boater out there, the only difference being they have a light bar and we don't. Golden rule, folks. Golden rule....
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