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Originally Posted by Gilligan
How does the slower MP boat catch the go fast boat? They can't. They can try to radio another patrol boat and try to intercept the go fast boat but it rarely works. MP is not equipped to even chase errant jet skiers. Many of us have seen boating violators outdistancing MP boats with blue lights and sirens chasing them. There are too few MP. MP is too slow and the other boats are too fast.
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Good points. But these sound much like the problems that road cops had many years ago, and I don't recall them excusing themselves and giving up. They took action to strengthen laws, to get the vehicles and equipment they needed, and to hire the officers they needed. Enforcement officials probably went to the state capitols and fought for the stuff they needed to do their jobs. Can you imagine the reaction you'd get if the state police said they did not have enough troopers and that their cruisers were not fast enough, so there was no sense having speed limits on our highways?
Could this fear of not being adequately staffed and equipped be the reason MP is fighting this bill? Could they just be giving up on our safety because they don't understand what we expect? Seems that we first need to work with them to help them understand what we want this bill to accomplish. Then we need to help them convice Flynn that more patrolmen and better equipment is needed.
Of course, we do not expect them to be tagging boats going 46 mph or trying to measure speeds to within a tenth of an mph. We expect them only to give enforcement a reasonable effort and to cite the flagrant violators, and we expect the deterent effect of the law to do the rest. AND, next time there is an accident and one boat was going 70 mph, they will have a law to cite him with so that there we can start to gather some of those STATISTICS about speeding that are so clearly being ignored these days.
I think a big part of our problem has been that Dave Barrett is just not understanding what we expect from this law.