Quote:
Originally Posted by Evenstar
{snip}Speed limits do make lakes safer. With all else being equal, slower speeds are safer than faster speeds - that's a fact. {snip}
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How much ? How much safer ? As the survey shows and is apparent to those of us who boat on the lake, the number of boats exceeding 45 is small. The majority of bonehead encounters occur at speeds under the proposed limit and therefore won't be affected by the presence or absense of a speed limt. The increase in safety (more below) is going to be minimal at best.
As for safety being increased with lower speeds, OK, but why not 35 or 25 or 10 mph ? Certainly these would all be safer than 45 mph. Why not those limits ? Why not a night-time limit of NWS ? It's done on other lakes. Why not ... because safety is not the be all and end all of considerations when it comes to using the lake ... or anything else. Speed limits on RT93 aren't set to make it as safe as possible w/o consideration for anything else otherwise we'd see them around 35 or so. I can understand your desire to feel safer but at what cost, what limitations for others ? You want what you want, "they" want what they want and frankly I don't see why I should much care about either
wants.
There are times and places where you can go "fast" and times and places where you can't. It seems a lot of the debate here has been framed around what the lowest common denominator of boater could/might do. That is we're now letting the worst drivers dictate what the rest of us should be legally allowed to do. It's been stated that Winni should have a speed limit to better catch drunk boaters. It's been stated the Littlefield's* actions that night somehow support a need for a speed limit. I'd laugh at both arguments where it not that the thinking behind them (as best as I can determine it) further perpetuates the LCD disease. What ever happened to the "reasonable man" line of thinking ? If we are to limit peoples actions, let's not limit what a "reasonable man" could do safely. So what can be expected from a "reasonable man" in Evenstar's situation ?
How far away on a typical day can "we" reasonably expect to see Evenstar in her kayak ? I don't know about you all but in 30 years of boating on Winni I've yet to fail to see a canoe or kayak at distances in excess of 1/2 mile or greater. Next time anyone finds themselves driving a car down a long, flat, straight road think about how far ahead you could see someone sitting in a kayak. For the moment I'll take 1/10 of a mile as the
minimum distance that a person paying attention will see Evenstar in her kayak. Winnfabs states that a boat doing 80 mph might take over 300 ft to stop. Let me use 350 ft. Use their number for reaction time (1.5 secs, a pretty standard 85% number for these types things) and guess what, you're not run over. I'm not sure of their numbers for stopping distance but then again I've left out any manuvering that would certainly be done as well in such a situation. Does that make 80 mph OK ? I'm not saying that (based on this simple analysis) but the point is that at speeds
well over 45 mph, a "reasonable man" isn't going to run you down. When boaters nearly miss you it isn't because their speed is so high they don't have a chance to react (unless your contention is that these boats were doing 80), it's for other reasons. They may think their distance from you is an acceptable one. Could be they weren't paying attention. Could be they're being malicious. Could be a bunch of other things (BUI among them) as well but none of them make 45 mph as being the proper limit.
Is there an upper limit on how fast a normal human, not Superman with super vision nor the Flash with super reaction speed, can go before he/she is risking other's life and limbs on even the best of boating days ? Of course. But it ain't 45. Until the discussion starts to revolve around facts and reason vs wants, I'll just keep wondering about what kind of "free" world we'll be leaving to the next generation.
*Do I have to debunk this bunk again ?
ps - If you want to substitute "reasonable person" for "reasonable man" ... go ahead, I'm just not very PC at this moment.
