[Fat Jack]

Something about this bill smells funny.

While no one will argue against a better noise law, one has to question what this is really about. I am all for it and I hope it passes, but when I read who is behind HB1624, (Rep Whalley who owns a chain of jet ski dealerships and has been the biggest opponent to SL's in the House, The Marine Trades Association of which Whalley is certainly a member, and Director Barrett who seems to have opposed every GFBL restriction in the past except those that the MTA and NHRBA have wanted), and reading that Whalley told the House Transportation Committee that "noise, more than speed, is a concern for the people who enjoy the state's waterways" (says who?), it becomes pretty obvious that HB1624 is really just a counter-measure against HB162. Are we really to otherwise believe that the MTA has suddenly "gotten some religion" and volunteered to put limitations on themselves for our sake? Weren't they the very reason that our existing noise law was so badly weakened in the first place?

And HB1624 is not at all about safety. It is part of a bigger plan, including the "minority recommendation" and other efforts to confuse the legislature, and it is clearly only intended to be used as a tool against the speed limits of HB162. It plays into the false accusation that we keep hearing on this forum from the NHRBA members (and from Director Barrett) that we are “disingenuous” and not really concerned with the safety of speed limits, but are really just using speed limits as a decoy to get performance boats off the lakes, in this case because they are noisy.

I'm sure that the word being spread around Concord by Rep Whalley et al is that since safety isn't the "real issue", perhaps a bill like this will make performance boats more tolerable and shut us up.

We should have all seen this coming with some of the posts we've been seeing from the opposers in the past couple of weeks. NHRBA was obviously involved with this hoax too. The similarity of all these arguments and tactics coming from different directions is just too much of a coincidence for it to be otherwise.

I'm certainly in favor of HB1624, as I am sure will be all HB162 supporters if it really sets out to do what this article implies. But it simply does not address the safety concerns posed by high speeds and should not be used as a substitute for HB162. HB1624 does not address the speed and danger problems that the RR&D Committee described in their HB162 Majority Report, that almost 70% of NH's citizens want to see addressed by speed limits. HB1624 is not a safety initiative.

I guess one could even argue that if a boat is headed towards you at 90MPH, it is safer for you that you can hear it coming. Without speed limits, quieter boats speeding across our overcrowded lakes would actually be less safe to some degree. So although I do support HB1624, I hope no one will be fooled into thinking that it is a substitute or compromise for the real safety bill; HB162.

It will also be interesting to see if this backfires on Whalley, the MTA, and NHRBA. They are surely seeing this as the lesser of the two evils for them and banking a great deal on the chance that this will help them overcome HB162. But they might end up with both "evils". If HB162 passes, they will be in the miserable position of having to tell their members that they not only have speed limits to deal with, but that they might also have tougher noise regulations, through their own backing.

Since Lake George has found that speed limits not only improve safety but also reduce noise, why don't they just support the speed limits if they are sincere about this?