You are a senator how do you vote on HB-847

[Evenstar]

Originally Posted by Mashugana

Your interpretation of the statistics has 2,156 boats actually going over 50 mph on the entire lake in all of 11 weeks. You did not say how long in minutes or hours they were presumed to be over 50 mph so I will ignore that omission for this post. How many of those 2,156 "speeding boats" were the cause of ANY kayak accidents on Lake Winnipesaukee? Still giving you the benefit of the doubt, if these violators (unsafe operation, 150' rule and maybe others) were going 45 mph instead of 50 mph would it have made any significant difference in their attentiveness? Probably not.

I didn’t interpret anything, it’s called statistical analysis – the marine patrol provided the raw data. The MP didn’t publish any data that give how long boats were going over 50 mph, so why would I be expected to include that “omission.” First of all “over 50 mph” does not mean 50 mph. according to the MP, 8 of the boats were going between 51 and 60 mph, and 3 were going between 60 and 70 mph. At 70 mph, a boat is going 103 feet per second – in less than 1.5 seconds it would cross my entire 150 foot zone – that’s not much more than a blink. The faster a boat is traveling the more of the lake that gets covered in that blink.

I’ve been trying to explain this for months, but most people here still don’t get it (or they are ignoring it). This is not about the difference between 45 and 50 mph – this is about continuing to permit boats to travel at unlimited speeds. If no boat ever went over 50 mph, then I wouldn’t be fighting so hard for a speed limit. The study actually gives that 27% of the boats that were traveling over 50 mph were traveling at speeds over 60 mph. When you plug that into those 2,156 boats, you have 582 boats that were traveling over 60 mph.

The other thing is that lack of kayak/powerboat high-speed collisions is not proof that we don’t need a speed limit – it just proves that people like me have been lucky so far. I have had high-speed boats violate my 150 foot zone just because the operators were traveling faster than their ability to see smaller boats (based on their expression and reaction when they did finally notice me.) These were unintentional violations – caused by their excessive speeds. Had they been traveling at a more reasonable speed they probably would have seen me much sooner.

So far I have not been run over by a powerboat – but I have had way too many close calls. And I’m not the only one – sooner or later a close call is going to result in a fatality. That’s what I’m fighting to prevent. Squam lake has a 40 mph speed limit, and I kayak there a lot on weekends. No powerboat has ever violated my 150 zone on Squam because they were traveling too fast to see me. That has only happened on likes without a speed limit.

Originally Posted by jrc

If this is how they teach probablity and statistics in your school you should ask for a refund.

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This has nothing to do with probability (this is the correct way to spell it, BTW). And there's nothing wrong with my statistical analysis. If you're so knowledgeable in this area, why don't you try to explain why my analysis is incorrect, rather than just making derogatory comments about my education?