Quote:
Originally Posted by Skip
I expect it will be addressed either way in the next legislative session.
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What strikes me as interesting about this issue and so many others like it is that the legislature will expend significant time and effort on this public safety matter, largely because someone, some group, or some event brought attention to the issue.
Beyond the details of the issue of concern, people will argue that if the law, rule, statue, saves even one life its worth it.
Well I cannot argue with any of that, but it all begs the question of what is the actual risk?
By that I mean likely hood of this potential event to happen, and I would expect hard numbers of actual events, not near misses, not polls showing numbers of people who have great concern for the matter or who have a paralyzing fear it could happen to them or strong preference for the law, rule statue. Show me the hard numbers of actual events!
Once you have that irrefutable data in hand, then you really have to ask the cold and hard question, how does this rank alongside all the other matters that the same legislative body should, could, might focus on.
Is some cases, we agree that the likelihood is very low, but the potential impact is worth focusing on this issue before other more likely situations.
So we pass laws to keep dynamite out of hardware stores before we deal with road safety matters because of the tremendous dangers associated with explosives.
And most are in agreement with such prioritization, but when you start talking about boating safety in the northeast where we get 2 – 3 good months for boating, and that the issues of concern use up extended periods of the legislatures time to address, then I ask you to consider what you are accomplishing.
Are there really so many accidents and fatalities on NH waters that these issues truly warrant putting them ahead of the many other issues that they could be focusing on?
As I am not a resident I cannot say specifically what other matters might come before boating safety, but I suspect there are plenty.
And for those who will ridicule this perspective, please just show me the real numbers because the ones I have seen don’t seem to make me fear for my safety on NH waters, just the opposite in fact, and unfortunately there is only so much time and money in the Government pool, and the legislature will have to pass up something else to deal with your boating safety issues.
As NH residents its your choice, but you might take a moment and step back and take a holistic view of Government and public resources and make sure you have really considered where you want to expend those finite resources. I for one would have a very long list of concerns that comes ahead of boating certificate regulations and boating speed limits and some of these other issues that just dont seem to have hard public safety numbers to support the concern being expressed by some here.
Eeek that’s was a long post,,, Better take a breath,,,
