jzog

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  1. jzog
    jzog liked a post in a topic by abaduck in Hudson River boaters plan protest, say marine units overdo safety checks   
    Disclaimer: I'm not a boater, never have been. But i'm reading this with interest, and will open my big mouth with some thoughts.
    I can see both sides here.
    People kill themselves and others doing dumb things and drunk things in cars. People kill themselves and others doing dumb things and drunk things in boats.
    So we enforce certain laws to try to prevent that.
    I drive every day in Westchester. Thousands and thousands of miles a year. In eight years I've been stopped for checks or inspections maybe three or four times - usually just a five second stop while a cop checks the registration and inspection stickers on the windscreen.
    If law-abiding people on the river - people who aren't drunk or doing anything to suggest they're breaking any laws - are being stopped regularly, or even occasionally, three or four or five times a DAY, something is very wrong. No harm in aggressive enforcement and 'showing the flag' as LEOs - just like the deterrent effect of parking a cruiser somewhere visible. But if that extends to excessive actual stops - which it sounds like has been happening - then I'd have to wonder if the enforcement is being adequately targeted.
    JJB531 is right, enforcement is clearly needed, otherwise the people who don't give a s*** will have a free-for-all. ny10570 is right too; it sounds as if the enforcement is sometimes happening in a way and at a level that would NEVER be tolerated on the roads - civil disobedience would be the result, people would simply stop consenting to be so policed, and start refusing to stop.
    Maybe the answer IS legislation and consolidation; a single PD for a single river sounds very much like the natural way to go. Maybe until that happens the river users need to engage with all the LE agencies collectively, and come up together with some way to minimise the number of times law-abiding boaters are stopped - the USCG sticker, or some similar scheme, sounds like a good start, for example. That's good for the river users, who have less hassle, and good for the cops, who spend less of their time dealing with the law-abiding.
    Mike
    Mike