Officials Stress Water And Boat Safety Ahead Of Fourth Of July

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Fourth of July is under a week away, and thousands of people are expected to beat the heat this weekend on the water with a lot of people renting boats on our local lakes and rivers.

Law enforcement say it’s noticing a rise in unsafe behavior in Mecklenburg County.

Officers like Sampson Parker are on patrol to make sure everything goes swimmingly.

“Just looking on the boats to see if there’s any children under 13 not wearing life jackets,” Parker said.  “And then looking to see if the vessel has the right numbers and registration sticker.”

Clouds and a chance for storm kept a lot of wimpy boaters off Lake Norman Friday afternoon, but not everyone.

After a quick safety inspection for life jackets, fire extinguishers and proper registration, Parker let the boaters go with a verbal warning, but not everyone will be so lucky this weekend.

“We’re looking at jet skis and there’s multiple ones close to each other, if one of the jet skis are heading at the other one and turn at the last second to splash the ski, which we see quite often, it’s very dangerous and could be considered careless and reckless operation, which is a Class 2 Misdemeanor.”

You may also see a lot of new faces on the water as we head into the holiday week.

“We’ve seen more rentals in the last two to three years than we have, say, the past 10 years. A lot of people are renting boats through apps and the renter, a lot of times, is not running them through a proper safety briefing.”

At the end of the day, it comes down to the renter to make sure everything’s up to snuff.

“If you do rent a boat, make sure that person that’s renting that boat to you makes sure that he’s giving you a proper rundown of where the safety equipments at, how to drive the boat and a good overall safety.”