"Triathlete busted swimming across Lake Nokomis" - Strib article (Page 2)

BikerGrrrl - 2008-08-11 12:42 PM I swam at Nokomis on Saturday afternoon and a lifeguard positioned himself on a surfboard, facing the swimmers, on the outside of the swim buoys.  I like to think it was for my own safety and he wasn't waiting for me to veer out  and then nab me   I had plenty of good deep water to swim in, just inside the buoys, and it was good practice to swim near the folks playing because it caused a little bit of chop like in a tri.

No problems with this if you swim at 6am...

Hopefully they're not staffing guards that early...

I can agree with points made on both sides of the argument but I think the biggest reason for the law is the insane amount of resources ($$$$) that are spent even in a false alarm response. The same cops, deputies, firefighters, paramedics and troopers that should be out on the street padding the government's coffers picking up Sal for going 9 over the limit and busting crackheads have to go pick some out of the water. And every time it happens there's a million law enforcement and emergency responders on the scene with every imaginable contraption to find a drowning victim. Bottom line is that its not cheap and if law enforcement/emergency response can avoid even one of these a year because they have a law in place that has some teeth, so be it. They're not worried about the leapdog/Matchman/Sparco/Bikergrrrrl variety of dumbasses. They're worried about the dumbasses who have never learned how to swim trying to cross the lake on a dare after 17 beers. So in the end, it really is a very right wing/Republican law because they're just trying to reduce taxpayer burden and increase efficiency in government.

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