Panel votes to make boat hit-and-run a felony
After witnesses said boaters at Pineview Reservoir left a swimmer to bleed to death after they struck her last summer, lawmakers advanced a bill Friday to make leaving the scene of a boating accident clearly illegal.
The House Transportation Committee voted unanimously Friday to pass HB92 and send it to the full House. It requires people who have “reason to believe” they have been in a boating accident to remain at the scene. It makes it a felony to flee the scene when someone is killed, and a misdemeanor in other cases.
Its sponsor, Rep. Richard Greenwood, R-Roy, said it comes in response to an Aug. 21 incident where Esther Fujimoto, 49, a University of Utah researcher, died after being struck by a boat on Pineview Reservoir.
A witness told deputies that men in the boat yelled at the woman to see if she was all right — but then fled without offering aid. Her screams were heard by another passer-by, who rowed to her. As he called 911, he was unable to pull her into the boat, but held her head above the water.
Rescuers arrived and performed CPR, but Fujimoto — who suffered lacerations to her torso from the motorboat’s propeller — died before she reached shore.
Our view from the helm: It is truly sad that our government needs to pass legislation that makes “boat hit-and-run” a felony because of man's inhumanity to man, chilling indifference, or just outright selfishness.
In short things like what happened to Esther Fujimoto should never happen to anyone, anywhere. Get it together people!
In the interest of starting an intellectual and possibly stimulating conversation on boater behavior I offer the following.
I have been blessed with boating on the Great Lakes, the south east, and the western part of this country. I have noticed that where people have the opportunity to live by and on the water, they are for the most part more considerate. They respond to help others, look out for others and if needed render assistance to others on the water. In locales where boating is near a major metropolitan area that is not a waterfront community, there is a decided lack of care in operation of boats. This ranges from out right obnoxious behavior at the launch ramp (entertaining to watch from dockside), ignorance of what “No Wake Speed” means, and a complete disregard for safety of their passengers and other boaters. And I have to say that over my 40+ years of boating, the general behavior of boaters has declined. Have other boaters seen something similar? What I throw out for general discussion is this. Has the decline in behavior merely mirrored the decline in civility of our society, or is boating an isolated culture?