Stopped by Water Patrol This Weekend...

[OldePharte]

Hey Mo! (sorry I couldn't resist) The Missouri boating law requires: "Besides being USCG—approved, all PFDs must be: ◦In good and serviceable condition.
◦Readily accessible, which means you are able to put the PFD on quickly in an emergency. PFDs may not be stowed in closed or locked compartments.
◦Of the proper size for the intended wearer. Sizing for PFDs is based on body weight and chest size."

Some WP officers feel that "Readily Accessible" means in sight and not stored under a seat and that "Of the proper size for the intended wearer" means that if he/she has everyone grab a life vest, it better fit. Perhaps, that was the citation.

I had a somewhat heated discussion with a couple of them at a boat show over these very topics. I pressed them why they don't require the same accessibility and fit for the cruiser operators as they do for me. They really didn't have an answer, but as I walked away I mentioned that money talks really loud and that just because they would be the ones running over me (meaning that I had better have my life jackets accessible and sized properly to abandon ship), and not the other way around was not an acceptable answer.

[slingshot]

I've been a cop all my life. I can tell you that next to aviation units, marine units are the most expensive units to run for any department especially the small ones. That having been said, they tend to be under pressure to show some results which unfortunately is interpreted by many officers as writing citations. Marine units have a huge amount of power in that they can stop you for a simple safety inspection in most states. As a road patrolman, I would have loved to been able to pull over vehicles solely based on my desire to conduct a safety inspections. Marine units are suppose to set up a particular area and stop folks for safety inspections is some non random manner i.e. every 4th boat that enters into the area or any boat that enters the area. It depends on the department.

[badmoonrising]

^ Yep, the more in debt Maryland gets, the more citations get written. Our DNR is in trouble financially and losing fishing license sales as well as boat registrations due to the poor economy and people who don't buy licenses due to MD raising them every year.

[HandymanHerb]

I've been a cop all my life. I can tell you that next to aviation units, marine units are the most expensive units to run for any department especially the small ones.

Well when your spending others people's money, you have to have the best of every thing and a tow rig to match, then most times they are not trained to take care of the equipment that ends up sitting unused for a while.

The aviation unit here use to hot start the engine every time they started the engine in the helicopter, not a good thing for long life in an engine an a mechanic had to go over and hit the reset for them, they finely got tired of going over and just showed them how to reset it and knew they have plenty of engine work coming their way.

And I agree on the big ships not having to check the fit on PFD's that do it all the time, but then we who don't get paid to do it are supposed too

[ROLAND]

Mosnowman.... sorry to hear about your experience with the water patrol, but..... and please don't take this the wrong way..... I'm a little confused as to why your upset about the stop.... From what I read on your post, it wasn't an erroneous stop.... law there requires children 7 and under to wear the lifevest...your nephew is 8. Gotta believe it's pretty hard to differentiate the age of a child from a passing boat.... so the only way to check the childs age is to stop your boat.... Think about what if he hadn't stopped you, given the post about the speedboat / pontoon boat accident earlier this week, if you had been involved in an accident and your nephew been injured or god forbid, even worse, then people would be bitching about the water patrol not doing their job.... now as far as all the other things he asked you... yeah, I'll agree he was probably "walkin the dog" for his younger partner... but in truth he didn't do anything wrong. I've been thru the same thing... water patrol stopped me last year, boarded my boat, asked for registration, checked life jackets, yadi yadi yadi..... Took about 5 minutes... I was in compliance, no harm no foul...... Personally I'm glad they're out there... in fact I wouldn't mind seeing a few more out there to get some of these morons off the lake.. anyway, glad you all had a safe weekend....