Coast Guard statistics clearly show the top cause of accidents is boater inattention, followed by careless / reckless operation and then excessive speed. If you read the report,
excessive speed is defined as "speed above which a reasonable and prudent person would have operated under the conditions that existed. It is not necessarily a speed in excess of a posted limit". So excessive speed could be 20 mph or it could be 100 mph.
According to the CG, 87% of accidents happened at speeds below 40 mph with the greatest percentage under 20 mph.
If you read the report, you will also notice that while over the reporting period (10 or so years) the number of registered boats has increased 15% (by 1.7 million), the number of fatalities based on the number of registered boats has decreased over 30%. NH is, overall one of the best states statistically.
Its a very interesting report. Maybe the WinFABS professional lobbyist should read it (I'm sure Barrett has). Here's a link
http://www.uscgboating.org/statistic...stics_2006.pdf
I think the facts speak for themselves, but I'm sure they will be twisted.
One other note, only 14% of all accidents were caused by operators who had a boating certificate that would be recognized by NH, over 40% had no boater education (the status of the remaining operators was unknown)