They are the revved up motorcycles of water craft. They can hit 85 miles an hour as fast as a rider can crank the throttle. And if there's an accident on Lake Lanier chances are it involves a personal watercraft.
Eleven-year-old Kile Glover became the latest victim on July 6 when he and a 15-year-old girl were run over by a Jet Ski while they were being towed on an inner tube by a pontoon boat.
Glover, who was unresponsive when pulled from the lake following the crash, died Saturday. He is the son of Tameka Foster, the ex-wife of entertainer Usher Raymond, and Atlanta TV executive Ryan Glover.
The Department of Natural Resources identified the operator of the personal watercraft as Jeffry S. Hubbard, of Atlanta. DNR said alcohol does not appear to be a factor in the accident.
Coming as it did only four days after the funeral for two brothers, Jake and Griffin Prince, killed in a June 18 boat wreck at the lake, the accident added impetus to the idea, among law enforcement and some who live on the lake, something needs to be done about boat safety in the state, where boat operators aren't licensed, there's no speed limit, and all too often alcohol is in the mix. The proliferation of personal watercraft has added the danger, they say.
"As far as I'm concerned the lake hasn't been as safe since they first started showing up," said Captain Harry Chapman with the Hall County Sheriff's Office reserve unit. Chapman grew up on the banks of Lanier. "People just don't know how to operate them. They don't have brakes. All they are is an accelerator with handle bars."
DNR records reveal that accidents on Lanier involving personal watercraft, known by such trade names as Jet Ski and Waverunner, are indiscriminate by age. The oldest person involved in a crash was 61, the youngest 10. They're nearly unpredictable by cause: in one case a throttle stuck; in another the driver lost control jumping a wake. And the injuries range from bumps and bruises to death.
"When you're on a jet ski, when you let off the gas, you don't stop, and you can't steer," said Lt. Jody Chapman, who is on the marine unit for the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office, which has stepped up enforcement on Lanier since the deaths of the Prince boys.
Chapman said the unit has cracked down on a state law little enforced and of which the boating public is largely ignorant, he said. "It's called the 100 foot rule. If you're within 100 feet of another object -- another watercraft, a dock, a swimmer -- you're supposed to slow down to idle speed. If people did that almost all these accidents could be avoided."
Since July 4th — when the lake seems as snarled with watercraft as the downtown connector at rush hour, but moving at a better, and far more buoyant clip -- his water patrols cited nine boaters for violating the 100-foot law -- a $75 fine.
"We're trying to make a difference," said Chapman.
At the speeds personal watercraft move it doesn't take a collision to get injured. Last summer Cristy Buice, 38, was riding in open water on her Yamaha Waverunner when a boat coming head on veered in her direction and she turned sharply and accelerated to avoid it, catching the boat's wake.
"It threw me up in the air 15 feet and I landed and separated a shoulder and hip and didn't know what happened until I woke up in the ambulance," said Buice. The boat that nearly ran her over just kept going, she said.
Ever since, she won't let her teenagers take the Waverunner out into the main channel. "They're not happy about it," said Buice, who is in favor of tighter boating regulations, especially alcohol consumption. In Georgia, boaters can legally have more alcohol in their blood than automobile drivers, unlike in many other states.
"Most of the problems with boating up here involves alcohol," said Buice, who suspects the boat that nearly ran her over was aiming at her and the pilot was probably drinking, though she had no evidence of that.
Joanna Cloud, executive director of the Lake Lanier Association, said it concerns her that boaters aren't licensed and often clueless about boating regulations and operations before they hop aboard and hit the gas. Last year, there were 20 water-related fatalities at Lake Lanier, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. This year, there have been five deaths.
"You have to have some kind of education to get a hunting license to hunt deer," she said. "So if you get behind the wheel of something as powerful as power boat or jet ski, I think there needs to be something more in terms of requiring an education."
Cloud said her group, which represents businesses along the lake, will take up the issue in executive session at its Thursday meeting. "I can't say what we're going to recommend, but boating safety is the only thing on the agenda."
Chapman of the Hall County's sheriff's office was writing a letter Monday to State Representative Carl Rogers ,R-Gainesville, asking him to push legislation that will require boat and personal watercraft operators be licensed at the same time they get a license to drive a car, no younger.
He said he's answered too many calls on the lake where a watercraft operator lost control with tragic consequences. "Something needs to be done about who gets behind the wheel," he said.
Staff writer Alexis Stevens contributed to this report
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