"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 21:50:22 GMT, "swatcop"
wrote:
Just F.Y.I., my personal definition of a safety inspection is not to be a
jerk and have a citation writing contest. I was thinking more along the
lines of pointing out to the boaters what equipment is old or missing,
trying to help out, not be an ass with a ticket book.

================================================== ====

Your attitude is commendable but your role is slightly confused. Your
role as an armed, badge wearing law officer is to enforce the law (in
a hopefully reasonable manner), not to offer helpful suggestions to
people who are not even on the water yet. To me that is overly
intrusive, and comparable to stopping someone who is backing out of
the driveway for a quick safety check of their car.


I can see your point, but on the other hand (and there's always another
hand), the police *do* sometimes slow down traffic to peek in cars for seat
belt compliance. There are occasional complaints about this, but mostly it
goes by without much whining.

(Unbelievably, they actually catch people without seat belts - people who
had a full minute to put them on while they waited their turn to be peeked
at).