Quote:
Originally Posted by Evenstar
I don’t feel that the world is against me – what is clear is that you guys feel that you are losing this debate with me, since a number of you have stooped to personal attacks, hoping to force me off this forum.
I've read the report – but it is very misleading because it only presents what was covered - without clearly stating what was left out of the study. To do statistical analysis, you need to know what percentage of a target area was part of a study. The report gives no percentages at all. It never gives what percentage of the lake was included in the study, or even what percentage of the total boating hours were included in the recording of boat speeds. Here’s a more accurate analysis:
Based on a 10-hour boating day, the 11 weeks in this study add up to 770 hours (10 hours x 11 weeks x 7 days/week), yet speeds were only recording over 135 hours. And that’s a total of 135 MAN HOURS – for all the sample areas combined. If all 9 sample areas were covered equally, speeds were recorded in each area for a total of only 15 hours over the entire summer – which is less than 2% of the daytime boating hours for this 11 week period.
98% of the time, at each of the study sites, speeds of boats were not being recorded at all. And this is assuming that only one officer was present at the time (But the report leads me to believe that two officers were likely present: “In high traffic areas it would be prudent for safety purposes if radar is employed, to have two officers in the vessel, one concentrating on the radar and the other focused on the patrol boat operation and it’s relationship to other vessels.”) If two officers were present all the time, this further reduces the total recorded time to less than 1% of the daylight boating time.
So, at best, speeds were recorded during only 2% of the total daylight boating hours. And yet 11 boats were still recorded at speeds of over 50mph. If we assume that this is a fair sampling (as you seem to be suggesting), these 11 boats actually translate into an estimated 539 boats that were traveling at speeds over 50 mph (over the entire 770 total daylight boating hours during the 11 weeks of the study). And that’s just in the sample areas of the lake! What about the rest of the lake?
So, based on the study, approximately 539 boats were traveling at speeds over 50 mph last summer – just within just the study area. Isn’t it possible that some of these boats may have not seen a certain sea kayak until they were closer than 150 feet?
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You're joking right??? Are you suggesting the only valid study is one that covers the whole lake for the whole summer? 3800+ boats is a pretty significant sample and should give a pretty clear indication of what is happening on the lake. You lost me on your discussion of Man hours. If there were two people on the boat for 135 hours, then that would result in 270 Man hours of labor. Not really relevant unless you want to discuss what the study cost.
All your spin, and shaky analysis still doesn't negate the fact that only 1 out of 100 boats was going over 45 mph. Certainly not the "wild west" talked about by speed limit proponents.
I'm going to give you a piece of advice that might save your life someday. Quit worrying about boats going over 45 mph, they're not the problem. Keep your eye out for captain bonehead, tooling along at 25 mph in his pontoon boat sipping a martini watching the scenery. While you're straining to see that one speedboat zipping by at 50 mph, captain bonehead might just run you over, he's a much bigger threat and a speed limit won't deter him.
But then this isn't really about safety is it.