ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½

For all the energy councillors put into building protected bike lanes and ticketing drivers travelling a mere 12 km/h over the speed limit, an average of in motor-vehicle collisions between 2020 and 2024. Meanwhile, according to Transport Canada, — often through no fault of their own, as with our rower Cohen.

There’s something bipolar about the way we regulate motorized objects. As soon as you travel two hours away from ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ and jump into a boat or rent a Jet Ski, elected officials seemingly wash their hands of your safety. While you can’t drive faster than 80 km/h on Highway 11 near Gravenhurst, there’s no law to prevent you from testing the 120 km/h top speed of your Sea-Doo RXP-Z 325 the moment you arrive at the lake.

Drive your SUV at 130 km/h through the 80 km/h faux-construction zone on Highway 400 near Bradford, and the Ontario Provincial Police can — without due process — for 30 days. The maximum fine is $10,000, the very same penalty Charles McNair paid after related to Cohen’s tragic death.

Five years have passed since that accident, and hundreds more have died on our waters, .

Tuff Marine, a company based in Cambridge, advertises that its new 28-foot powerboat is the “,� with a top speed of 220 km/h. Sounds exhilarating. What’s inexplicable is that the OPP’s Marine Unit will give you a $200 ticket if the flashlight batteries in your boat’s emergency kit aren’t installed correctly, and yet there’s no particular speed limit for those same police to enforce, provided you’re at least 30 metres from shore.

We can’t legislate against stupidity, but we can do so much better than this.

An easy place to start would be with orange “skier down� flags. spotters to raise an orange flag if their water skier or wakeboarder has fallen into the water. In Arizona, state legislators are such fans of personal freedom that you can carry a loaded AR-15 rifle over your shoulder, yet they have the common sense to ensure that spotters wave a flag to warn speedboats when one unknowingly approaches a kid bobbing in the water.

Rules about keeping a safer distance would be another easy step for Ottawa. At the moment, boaters are restricted to 10 km/h when they’re 30 metres from shore or less. There’s no harm in doubling that buffer to 60 metres from land or the end of a dock — which would give canoes, kayaks and swimmers a far wider berth.

Given the dangers involved in boating, kids under 16 are prohibited from piloting personal watercraft. The current $250 fine isn’t much of a barrier, but who would let their child leave the dock if the penalty were that their kid would lose the right to apply for a G1 driver’s licence until they turned 18? No one.

As for speed limits, if it’s not legal to drive more than 110 km/h anywhere in the country, then how does Transport Canada justify giving freshwater boaters a free pass? Given this is a department so cautious that it requires drone hobbyists to get recertified every 24 months, could it be that its officials are secretly aquatic speed freaks?