Quote:
Originally Posted by Acres per Second
If "other people" includes sailboats, you may already know that sailing can involve some unpredictable—yet major—"moves". If you're going somewhere speedily, and distracted—say—by your GPS, you risk collision.
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One of the
Benefits of speed limits is the need to check your speed often. Most built in boat speedometers are not highly accurate and depending on the water waves and current they do not show actual land speed. They just show an approximate speed at which the water passes the hull of the boat.
A GPS is the best way to keep tabs on your real speed. With speed limits it makes nothing but good sense to routinely
take your eyes off of the water and focus on the small MPH numbers on your GPS to make sure you are not breaking the law.
This is particularly important at night to keep kayaks, canoes, swimmers and campers safe from speeders.
Of course it takes a few moments for your eyes to adjust from scanning the water to focusing on the little speed limit numbers on your GPS and then for your eyes to readjust to view the lake but it must be worth it to keep everyone safe. And don't forget that some people need to change glasses from distance to reading glasses to clearly see those speed limit numbers on the GPS. And in daylight those polarized sun glass lenses make it harder to see LCD displays. All these distractions re-enforcing the need for speed limits.
I remember someone saying that good vision is not one of the requirements for a safe boater education certificate. Even more reason to have restricted speeds to help compensate for poor vision and distractions to check your speed on those handheld GPS units.
Reading over my post before I press SUBMIT is making me confused. Whatever, as long as people
feel safe because of the speed limit laws..... Right?