You have to have your trailer inspected?

Only if it has a gross maximum weight of 7500 or more.

I don't understand why you would not already wear one anyways. It's a common sense device that performs a pure safety function. it takes 2 seconds to click to your PFD. Not an excuse in the world not to have this law. Good on em'.

How many people have been actually injured or killed because someone else's boat ran into or over them because another driver wasn't wearing a kill switch? I've never seen or heard of it, but I've only spent 50-75 days on the water for the last 25 years.

What's next? A law that says we have to leave the water or face a $200 fine when lightning is within 30 miles? When the wind is blowing over 25 mph? People have actually died because of those things.

https://www.uscgboating.org/library/accident-statistics/Recreational-Boating-Statistics-2017.pdf

From the link...

x Where cause of death was known, 76% of fatal boating accident victims drowned. Of
those drowning victims with reported life jacket usage, 84.5% were not wearing a life
jacket.

x There were 172 accidents in which at least one person was struck by a propeller.
Collectively, these accidents resulted in 31 deaths and 162 injuries.

You think perhaps a kill switch would have prevented a bunch of those drownings? I do. How many times have we seen reports of boats adrift, unoccupied? Their occupants are typically alone and are either thrown from their boat or fall overboard, without a life jacket, and could not make it back to their boat so they drown.

I agree with the kill switch law for vessels with a low profile or capable of high speeds, bass boats, jet skis, etc. I wear my life jacket and kill switch 98% of the time while in my bass boat. The other side of this is my old pontoon boat. The pontoon has a max speed of 16 to 20 MPH depending on load, wind and water conditions. It has rails 42" high around the helm. I never wear my life jack or my kill switch. Guess I need to start practicing kill switch safety on the pontoon.

This will also be a big problem at boat ramps while loading and unloading your boat. Now you have to remember to put a kill switch lanyard on. I can see Officer Kelly at Lake Fork sitting on the public boat ramp handing out a hundred tickets a day.

Life jackets and kill switches save lives. Why would anyone not employ them?

The vessel has to be above "Headway Speed" according to the law.

100% agreed but it should still be a choice not a law same as a helmet or seat belt or talking on the phone! I heard on the radio something like 1200 new laws on the books after the last session and we are allegedly a conservative State. That is just plain crazy! Freedom!!!!!

That is interesting, according to the definition I found on the internet "headway speed" means the minimum speed necessary to maintain steerage and control of the watercraft while the watercraft is moving. I guess this would include loading a boat on the trailer and my pontoon boat.

WATERCRAFT SPEED REGULATIONS

No person may operate a watercraft at a speed greater than headway speed while within the water safety zone or within a marina or an approved anchorage in coastal or inland waters except while actively fishing. For the purposes of this section, "headway speed" means the minimum speed necessary to maintain steerage and control of the watercraft while the watercraft is moving.

The operator of any watercraft must operate at a reasonable and prudent speed for existing conditions and regulate the speed of a watercraft so as to avoid danger, injury or unnecessary inconvenience in any manner to other watercraft and their occupants, whether anchored or under way. The operator must consider the effect of the wash or wave created by their watercraft to waterfront piers, floats or other property or shorelines.

The majority of these 1200 new laws are deleting and cleaning up old laws.

100% agree.


Unbelievable, the amount of bitching, about wearing a life vest and kill switch. The family and friends waiting for your return from a day on the water.
Actually, care about your well being. Isn't that enough for you to wear a life vest and attach the kill switch.

I've never understood this mentality.
"I 100% agree with the law but want to maintain the right to act with wreck-less abandon without consequence if I so choose" All in the name of conservativism?

I personally like the idea of kill switches being required but more for ski and pleasure boats than bass boats. Reality is a pretty high % of bass boats have hot foots which act as a default kill switch outside of the fact the prop is still spinning. To my knowledge, none of the big pleasure boats have hot foots or similar.

And here's an idea for TPWD while they are working on new laws. Put up BIG signs at every state owned boat ramp in Texas that say "PREPARE BOAT FOR LAUNCH BEFORE APPROACHING LAUNCH RAMP"

Sooooooo, "headway speed" is the speed you use when loading and unloading your rig. Law says "greater than headway speed" is when a violation would occur.