New to boating...shocked safety course not mandatory!

[New Hampshire Native]

I agree with you on the classroom issue. For those not comfortable with online, the video/book course is an option. One of those two should be immediate and the classroom should be the phase in portion that is REQUIRED, also, by the time limits set. At least the online or video courses would teach some very basics before you hit the water. I am glad I took the online course and will also be attending a classroom in August or October. As you, this is just an opinion.

[KonaChick]

Education is first and foremost. Just because you're educated on the rules though does NOT mean you'll obey them. This happens on our roadways everyday and our lake is no different. What will work I feel is to hit people where it hurts..their pockets. Make the fines much stiffer..people will get the idea, and the extra money can fund more MP. Another thing that should be done is the point system just like driving licenses. You get a cetain number of points and you lose the privelege of driving your boat for a certain amount of time. I know the above ideas are not foolproof but I don't think we should stop at ecuation..take it a few steps further!

[Lakewinniboater]

KonaChick..... Very well stated

[New Hampshire Native]

Agree with fines and point system, I had stated to tie it to your license. I read right on these boards that 80% of the accidents on the lake last year involved folks that had NO SAFETY COURSE or boating card. Hello! If 50% of them had basic education, how many accidents would have been prevented. If 100% had some basic knowledge, who knows how many accidents would have been prevented. Don't even get me started on BWI, that's another whole issue.

[Woodsy]

Here is what the NTSB has to say on the matter of Boater Education....

http://www.ntsb.gov/alerts/sa%5F007.pdf

[KonaChick]

Great site Woodsy thanks..I had no idea the lack of PFD's was so prevelant. I have been in this situation thought boating with some friends who have NOT made their children (10-14 age range) wear their PFD's. This is someone who HAS taken the Boating Safety Course. My kids always argue with us when we're boating with them about wearing their PFD's. Next time this comes up I'm going to point out the stats on that website..Thanks!

[Kamper]

When I'm with someone required to wear a PFD I usually wear one too. It's a good example and good manners to suffer as much as they have to.

[TomC]

and thus am safe, not uncomfortable, and set a good example for my kids.

http://www.SOSpenders.com/

[T.H.E. Binz]

I'm O.K. with the phased approach, but the incredibly ludicrous policy is that renters of boats are not required to have the safety course!

[Woodsy]

Actually, they are at least required to take a 20 question test to make sure the bases are covered. Not that its the best solution... but it is something.

What is truly scary is that there is no visual aid for the MP to separate out who has a certificate vs. who doesn't. daytrippers and vacationers can just show up, plunk thier boats in and nobody knows if they have it or not.

You should read my proposal over in propellers post about "Weekend Observations" It isn't meant to be a speed limit debate, just a proposal that might make both sides happy and help out the MP's...

http://www.winnipesaukee.com/forums/...ead.php?t=2264

Woodsy

[KonaChick]

and this is where steep fines come in..you rent a house for a week and take your boat out w/out knowledge of the laws, and get a 200$$ ticket the first day out..you bet your sweet bibby you're going to educate yourself on the laws and rules for the rest of your stay!

[New Hampshire Native]

1) I WILL write the state lawmakers, as your brochure asked.
2) Most boats have flags, why not make a green flag with the certification number of the boater safety person on board, to fly from the boat? The flags would be a mandatory purchase ($10.00?) when you recieve your certification. At least you would be able to see which boats have noone on board that has had the safety course. If you switched to another boat for the day, bring the flag with you. If caught by Marine Patrol flying a flag and not possessing the Boater's license to match....$500.00 fine. Pretty simple, make it hurt.

[Woodsy]

I don't fly flags on my boats... nor do I want to. I think a bright colored sticker next to the bow numbers would work better, similar to your registration sticker. It makes it easy for a quick visual check for compliance.

Woodsy

[Boater]

If you are going to use stickers, flags and high fines why not just require licensing.

I can think of many reasons why labeling the boat wouldn't work. It's the driver, not the boat (where have I heard that before?).

My idea is that the DRIVER should wear a brightly colored lanyard around his neck with a waterproof proof card attached certifying the driver. That way I could drive ANY boat without the need for a sticker or flag.

If you are going to identify the BOAT you might as well just require that the owner has the safety certificate when he registers it. That way you'd know that any registered boat has a safety certified owner.

Of course none of this will fly. Look how much trouble it was to pass this weak, phased in training that we have now.

[BroadHopper]

I really don't think that is a safe idea. Nor is the online course.
When I took the on-hands course, I love the way the instructor took us outside and show us what is 150 ft!. That should be a mandatory part of the safety course. There are too many infractions of the 150' rule!
I'm tired of seeing the rental boats/jetskis violating the 150', no wake, and or ROW rules. Seems like the MPs are tied up with chasing the renters down.

[New Hampshire Native]

80% of the problems would go away if you were required to be licensed in order to DRIVE a boat, just like a car. Remember how scared you were when the Driver's license official took you for your test on the streets to get your license. If you couldn't parallel park, etc you failed? I am simply saying if you are not going to require licensing, then you need to identify boats with SOMEONE on board that has the boater safety card. At least one person on board has some kind of idea what the rules are. Identifying the boat only just means someone passed the course even though they may not be on the boat. If you haven't got a boat registered in New Hampshire, then you need to take the test first. That's another issue, if I want to ride my ATV in Maine, I need to pay a non-resident registration fee to be able to ride there. The additional money from the registrations goes to ATV safety instruction and additional trail building. Gee, there's an ingenious idea. I can hear the argument now, that it will drive away the tourists that spend the money here. Bull....I still will register my ATV to ride in Maine. It just adds revenue that could be spent on boater education. Any thoughts?

[Woodsy]

NH Native...

Boats are a completely different animal than ATV's. You pay a non-resident fee in maine because ATV's are not regulated at the federal level. Boats are! Not so many years ago, you could ride your snowmobile between NH, VT and ME without having to register your sled in each state. There was a reciprocal agreement between the 3 states that honored the registration from the home state as valid. I am not sure if MA was part of the reciprocal agreement or not. Maine was the first to break the deal and now they have all done away with that completely, and as such tourism has suffered.

Anyway, your missing the point of my proposal...

First off, there is only one state in the union that requires a boat license, thats Alabama. Its still an experiment at this point and the jury is still out on how well it works. It seems to be working quite well, but it also adds another thick layer of bureaucracy to the government that will need to be paid for, sucking up funds and resources from where the money is needed most. Its unclear to me as how or if there is any reciprocity between Alabama and any other states. They do however list that you can take the course online...

Anyway, back to my point. Even if you require a boating license, there is no way to tell if in fact the person driving the boat actually has one. If you read my proposal thouroughly you would see that I included a provision that made the owner of the boat liable for the actions of anyone else who drove the boat.

So your right, if the the owner gets his sticker, the MP's would assume the guy driving the boat was the owner and has succesfully completed Boater Ed... for arguments sake, lets say the driver was not the owner and had no formal boater education and he pulls some bonehead move. The MP's witness this move and pull the guy over. Now the guy driving gets a ticket for not having his boater ed cert, and the boat owner gets a ticket for letting an uneducated boater drive his boat. It won't take people long to get the message that we take boater education seriously. I am not too sure we want to tag the ticket to someones drivers license, but certainly we can tag it to thier safe boater certificate.. 1st offense $100 fine, 2nd offense within 1 year period $250 fine and completion of a classroom safe boater course, 3rd offense within 1 year period $500 fine and 6 months loss of boating privileges.

Right now, anyone from anywhere in the US can splash their boat on Lake Winni and go for a cruise. This is because of reciprocity. They are by NH law required to have the safe boater certificate if they fall within the appropriate age, but there is no way to tell. With my proposal, every boat on the lake will have a visual identifier that tells the MP (and other boaters) that they have been at least educated minimally. There will be more MP because they will be funded for Lake Winni by the people who use Lake Winni.

The law of the seas has been around alot longer than this country. The numbers on your boat are not just state registration numbers, they are U.S. Coast Guard numbers, identifying your boat as a U.S. flagged vessel. As such you can bring your boat to just about any waterway in the country. Just like you can drive your car in any state. You are required to obey the rules of the state you are visiting. But nowhere on any public boat launch that I have seen on Lake Winnipesaukee is it posted that Boater Education is a requirement for boating in this state. Alot of good people just don't know some of the different laws we have here in NH.

Woodsy

[Kamper]

Originally Posted by Woodsy

...
If you read my proposal thouroughly you would see that I included a provision that made the owner of the boat liable for the actions of anyone else who drove the boat. ....

The law of the seas has been around alot longer than this country. The numbers on your boat are not just state registration numbers, they are U.S. Coast Guard numbers, identifying your boat as a U.S. flagged vessel. ...

Woodsy

A lot of interesting information but some of it may need clarifiying.

In this state the boat owner is civilly liable for any damage caused by anyone operating their boat. You can find this information on the back of your registraion just above where you need to sign it. Vicarious criminal liability for actions by another person is not valid under our legal system for more reasons than anyone would care to read.

Second, the boat numbers are not USCG numbers. Those really are state numbers. The CG used to register boats in states that did not do it themselves. Those states eventually realised there was money to be made...
The current system of numbers follows a federally mandated pattern. A "Documented Vessel" is federally registerred but is not exempt from the state requirements of its home port.

[Mee-n-Mac]

Originally Posted by New Hampshire Native

80% of the problems would go away if you were required to be licensed in order to DRIVE a boat, just like a car. Remember how scared you were when the Driver's license official took you for your test on the streets to get your license. If you couldn't parallel park, etc you failed? I am simply saying if you are not going to require licensing, then you need to identify boats with SOMEONE on board that has the boater safety card. At least one person on board has some kind of idea what the rules are. Identifying the boat only just means someone passed the course even though they may not be on the boat. If you haven't got a boat registered in New Hampshire, then you need to take the test first. {snip}

While I'm not against a boat license, I'm not sure what % of the problems it would solve, consider this.... Ideally both the present certificate training and a license, the latter presumably with an exam, accomplish the same thing; exposure to and ideally retention of the appropriate boating rules and regs. You could make the good point that examination by a person (vs a test) means the examinee would really have to learn at least some of the material. I could make the same point that the present training would accomplish the same thing if it required an examiner and on-water test (many here have opined this would be a good thing). Ideally a license carries with it some "memory"; that is repeated infractions get increasingly punished and at some point your license can be revoked (hopefully preventing you from driving). This is perhaps the only real difference I see btw the 2 approaches. Presently I don't believe the boating fine structure allows this "progressivity" nor do I know when your boating privileges get yanked (perhaps Skip can comment). Certainly the Littlefeild case shows this can happen under the present system, even if only rarely. But look at how people, presumably licensed, drive their cars. Certainly mere licensing isn't stopping the bonehead behavior on our roadways, nor does revocation always stop someone from driving the car. If you can remember how scared you were prior to your exam, try to remember how scared you were 6 months, 1 year, 10 years later. Not much I'll wager. With that in mind I say it's unsure how much more effect a boat license program would have over what NH is presently trying to accomplish. You going to have some ignorants that hopefully can be educated. You going to have some malevolents that either system only imperfectly removes from the scene and in between you've got a lot of morons who switch off their brain when they switch on the ignition. Either system requires perhaps more stick than presently used, I'm wondering where the carrot is ? Stick w/o carrot is only half the motivational story. Somehow "we" have to indoctrinate people with pride in doing the "right thing" so that they feel good when they handle situation X in a proper, dare I say professional, manner. But now I'm straying from the topic ....

[New Hampshire Native]

That is the ENTIRE problem. If you make a bonehead more, take a chance, speed, fail to yield, etc. in a car, your license is effected. A fine is imposed, a 7 year mark is put on your license. The officer that stops you can look your history up, ticket you, realize whether or not you have a license still, and ticket accordingly. Everyone mentions how much it would cost to get a program going. The program is already there, it is called the Driver's License Program for automobiles. Sure, you might have to pay $50.00 every five years, like you do now for an automobile license, but at least the fine system, being responsible for your actions and the like would mean a little more. Sure, you do gain some comfort the longer you are behind the "wheel", but if you start out not even knowing the basics and you never learn what is right, there lies the problem. Folks on these boards have said that most violations are the 150 foot rule, did you ever think that most of the mistakes are made by folks that don't even know the rule exists? Sure there are some idiots that just plain ignore the rules set in place, and some that have been impaired by alcohol and possibly drugs. When you pass the Motorcycle driving test, you get the classification added to your driver's license....let's do it with boats, too. Let's tie it into your Driver's license, they do with motorcycles. I believe folks realize there is little chance on the lake that they will get caught performing bonehead moves, and if they do, little will be done about it and it will not affect their driver's license. Also, the violations should affect their boating insurance (or the insurance of the boat owner) just like it does in a car. If you get more than one violation on your driver's license for a car, your rates go up. Boat owners might decide WHO drives their boat,besides themselves, if anyone. The fines need to be stiffer, $60.00 for no boater certification? Make it $500.00 for the first offense, $1000.00 for each additional offense. Loss of auto driver's license for third and beyond. Send the message out, we are serious about safety. I realize the millionaires would care less about the fines, but attaching it to the driver's license would hurt. The majority of the folks driving on the lake, it would affect there wallets and licenses heavily. You should be able to go out on the lake at anytime and feel safe. I know quite a few locals that will not even take there boat out on the weekends, and most have lived here their entire lives. Just because I have been driving a car for 24 years, does not mean that I now have a comfort zone to violate every law put on the books. I sure as heck had a better understanding of what the laws were before I was unleashed with a deaadly weapon on the state's highways. I had to SHOW someone that I could handle the thing. Also, at least you have to stay between the lines with a car....there are no lines on the lake. Hope this helps stir up some good conversation.

[John A. Birdsall]

I think that the Marine Patrol should hit with a good ticket everyone that is not following the 150' rule. It will be tough at first, but then people like us start talking and informing others that they are inforcing it. This in itself will do more for people than boaters education. and it will make our lake and our boating pleasure more enjoyable in the long run. can you imagine having your boat in Alton Bay after 10 watching the fireworks and with 1000, boats in the harbor able to get to Little Mark Island say in 15 minutes, no way possible b ut it is done, why cause nobody is inforcing the 150' rule. Enough said

[VarneyPoint]

Just want to ask a simple question to try to get a sampling of answers from my fellow boaters. What infraction bothers you more, violating the 150' rule or violating the right of way (right of passage) rule? For me personally, people who don't know or care not to follow the right of way rule burn me the most. The reason being is that it is cut and dry. There is zero ambiguity to this rule. One boat has the right of way, the other does not. It makes me so mad when another boat who does not have the right of way does not yield and then flips me off when I don't yield b/c I have the right of way. Just wondering what others think. Thoughts?

[Orion]

They are both pretty cut and dry so it's hard to pick one over the other as both concern safety. I'm equally bothered by either violation. But it's easier to accomodate an ignorant right of way violation by yielding somewhat to err on the safe side if it looks like the yielding boat is not yielding. Common courtesy would solve all, regardless of rules.

[Kamper]

Originally Posted by VarneyPoint

Just want to ask a simple question to try to get a sampling of answers from my fellow boaters. What infraction bothers you more, violating the 150' rule or violating the right of way (right of passage) rule? ... Thoughts?

There is actually no "Right of way" on the water. That term is frequently used though in explaining the responsibilies between "Stand-On" or "Privileged" vs. "Give-Way" or "Burdenned" vessels.

There is a specific rule that may give the impression it is meant to protect fools from their own ignorance. It is known as the "General Prudence Rule" (Article 27 RoR). I'm working from an older copy of 'Chapman's" so it may have been re-written slightly in the most recent USCG publications but here's what I have...

"In obeying and construing the Rules of the Road, due regard must be given to all dangers of navigation and colision, and to any special circumstance that may render a departure from the Rules neccessary to avoid any immediate danger."

This is the clause that can give you partial liability if someone nails you while violating every other part of the Rules.

Now that I've blown some wind... To answer your question directly, 'right of way' errors are the ones I find most annoying too. Especially frustrating are the boats that zig when you zag to avoid them and then at the last minute zag back forcing you to zig.

[Mee-n-Mac]

Originally Posted by VarneyPoint

Just want to ask a simple question to try to get a sampling of answers from my fellow boaters. What infraction bothers you more, violating the 150' rule or violating the right of way (right of passage) rule? For me personally, people who don't know or care not to follow the right of way rule burn me the most. The reason being is that it is cut and dry. There is zero ambiguity to this rule. One boat has the right of way, the other does not. It makes me so mad when another boat who does not have the right of way does not yield and then flips me off when I don't yield b/c I have the right of way. Just wondering what others think. Thoughts?

Violation of the RoW rule (proper name notwithstanding) bothers me much more than most 150' violations. Violating RoW is the analog of running the red light/stop sign. Other are expecting the rule to be followed and if it isn't there's a fair chance of collision (and near certain guarantee of consternation). With the 150' rule there are many circumstances where people violate it and it really doesn't bother me at all. One case might be a boat overhauling me. Should it pass 75' away I can't say that it bothers me, short of complete stupidity on either of our parts, no harm will come of it. There are other similar types of situations as well. Primarily if I think the other guy has his boat under control and won't collide with me (which is most of the time) I don't get too peeved about it. Where "the 150" must be followed is in regards to shoreline and non-moving boats, as there's a possibility of swimmers in the water. Just some thoughts ....