No Wake

[John Mercier]

Originally Posted by XCR-700

Not sure I understand much of this response.

Boating licenses do virtually nothing as no one has to demonstrative their actual ability to operate the boat, its just a education certificate, and even the proctored component is worthless as they accept licenses from other states proctored or not.

Meaningful boater safety only comes with experience. Anything else is superficial.

Not sure how the economy or other comments about character or "We aren't going to go that way..." quite fit in, but for the moment I'll simply assume they are meaningful to others.

Each up and down session results in an expansion and contraction of the higher cost recreational format. Boating licenses were prescribed as a means to overcome the bad behavior (ill character)... if they don't overcome the perception... which you, yourself, stated that they can't. The Legislature will be pushed by the general public to go further.

The further may be... we need more MP... so the cost of boating registrations must rise to offset the cost of more MP, higher fuel and equipment prices, etc.

Residents, that can vote, will not want higher registration costs... and one of the few places to look is non-residents using reciprocity.
Historically, this is how snowmobiling moved from several open states to having registration in each state be the requiem.

Now... if everyone was behaving gracefully... not much that anyone can complain about.