Licenses for boat operators?---(South Carolina)

CaptnKirk · 01-29-2006, 05:10 AM

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With increasing boat traffic on S.C. lakes, state Rep. Ralph Norman believes it's time to require statewide licenses for boat operators, but he has no firm specifics on how they would be issued, paid for or enforced, especially on a border lake like Wylie.

"It's apparent to anyone who has been out to Lake Wylie on a summer day about the tremendous traffic and the fact that lake activities will increase 30 to 40 percent in the coming years," said Norman, a Rock Hill Republican who does not own or operate a boat.

Norman said his proposal was prompted last winter by a public forum with constituents in District 48, which includes Tega Cay and most of the 12,455-acre Lake Wylie. He said the forum's purpose was to discuss a proposed no-wake zone, but after he traveled the lake with a S.C. Department of Natural Resources officer, he became concerned about lake safety and the need for a boating license.

Norman says he has consulted with DNR officials but has yet to determine what would be required to earn a license, how much it would cost, how it would be issued or even how it would be enforced. DNR staffing has been drastically cut in recent years; York County has three officers to patrol its 685 square miles.

An additional problem is what to do about nonresident boat owners on lakes such as Wylie -- one third of its 325-mile shoreline is in North Carolina. Some lake officials estimate that up to half the boats on Lake Wylie on a summer weekend are from North Carolina.

Norman said he has not determined yet how to deal with nonresidents.

South Carolina has more than 400,000 registered boat owners. In 1999, Alabama became the only state in the union to require a boating license. Many states have some minimum level of required education for juvenile boaters. South Carolina requires anyone 16 and younger to take a boating safety course before operating a boat or personal watercraft with an engine larger than 15 horsepower.

In early January, Norman said that a draft bill would be ready to be submitted last week. On Thursday, he said he was not sure when the bill would be ready. On Friday, he said in a phone message that it would be "premature" to write about his proposed legislation. No other legislator or boating official has come forward to support him on the proposed legislation.

Several DNR officials involved in boating safety programs said they have not spoken with Norman but were aware of his proposal because of media accounts in early January.

About 4,000 people take the boating safety courses annually, said Jimmy Wagers, DNR's coordinator of Law Enforcement Education, Hunter and Boater Education.

Jerry Doyle is assistant education officer of the Catawba Power Squadron, which helps patrol Lake Wylie. He teaches the required youth boating safety course at Baxter Village.

"We'd be in favor of practically anything that would make boating safer," he said. "Anyone who boats on Lake Wylie is aware of the large number of boats and that many of those boats are operated unsafely and accidents have been increasing."

However, he says he's not sure that a license by itself would make boating appreciably safer.

"A driver's license does not prevent road rage, or people drinking and driving, or even driving a car wrecklessly," he said. "A boating license would have to require boating education classes to truly be effective."

Randy Mosley, 50, is a lifelong boater who owns a 21-foot bass boat. He is vice president of the S.C. Bass Federation, a private, nonprofit group that promotes sport fishing.

"I've never heard of this proposal and although we're all for boating safety, I'd be opposed to a license just for the sake of a license," Mosley said. "How would it actually make boating safer? Would the license fees be used to hold safety courses and install buoys and channel markers to actually make our lakes safer or would it just be to make another pile of money in Columbia?"

Boat Safety Course

Jerry Doyle of the Catawba Power Squadron teaches the required youth boating safety course at the Fort Mill Library at Baxter Village -- the next ones are Feb. 13, 20 and 27. Call (704) 362-1328 to register.

Charlotte Observer