Lake Zoar Speeders

To Be Tracked By Radar

By Jeff White

SOUTHBURY — Just in time for the official start of the summer boating season this Memorial Day weekend, the Lake Zoar Marine Police (LZMP) plan to put their newly acquired radar gun to use for the first time in an effort to crack down against speeding boats.

“We’ve seen an increase in the frequency of speed violations on the lake in the last couple of seasons, especially with jet skies,” acting Master Sergeant William H. Cannon said this week. Sgt Cannon, one of two field training officers charged with teaching radar techniques to Lake Zoar patrolmen, brings 25 years of radar experience to the initiative.

“When you have this excessive speed of 50 to 55 miles per hour, what takes place is you take the people using the lake and you place them in an unexpected and unreasonable risk,” he added.

Currently, the lake has a speed limit of 45 miles per hour during daylight hours, and 25 miles per hour at night.

As rain slipped down through the trees outside LZMP’s headquarters beneath the VFW last Sunday afternoon, Chief Joseph L. Steinfeld remarked that obtaining radar capabilities has been a primary goal for the police unit for the past two years. Over that time period, the patrolmen who monitor Zoar’s serpentine, 11-mile length have watched as larger area lakes — most notably Lake Lillinonah and Candlewood Lake — began to obtain the speed control capabilities of radar.

But Chief Steinfeld was never satisfied with the radar instruments he sampled.

A radar unit used to track traffic speed on water needs to be different from the typical laser guns used on interstates and around Newtown’s many residential roads, he said. The gun needs to negotiate the uneven, choppy surface of a lake.

Settling on a Doppler unit designed specifically for boat use (meaning it does not use laser), Chief Steinfeld said he was confident that the new instrument would make Lake Zoar a safer place for water recreationalists.

“[Radar] will greatly help us curtail future problems with speed. It’s a very important tool in our arsenal. It’s a necessity, an absolute necessity,” he said.

Sgt Cannon added that the new radar gun is now the patrol’s best way to reduce safety risks on the lake and enforce compliance with lake regulations.

Carl Hornbecker, whose family has called Zoar’s lakefront home for more than 50 years, operates Lakeside Marina on Zoar’s Southbury shores. Mr Horbecker said that over the past years conditions on the lake have actually gotten safer, no doubt to the constant weekend patrol and sporadic weeknight monitoring of LZMP.

On any given weekend day, Chief Steinfeld and his patrolmen divide into two groups of four, and comb Zoar’s entire length for eight hours. This season, Chief Steinfeld said, the radar gun will be in “constant use.”

Mr Hornbecker conceded that speed monitoring on the lake was a natural next step after posting strict speed limits. “Once they have a speed limit, they need to have some way to enforce it,” he said.

“It may have some effect on jet skies and personal watercrafts, which have gotten faster and faster in the past years. Those guys might have to throttle back,” he added.

Although 55 to 60 miles per hour is not considered fast by highway standards, Sgt Conner pointed out that those speeds when applied to water produces boats that are almost out of control. With this in mind, the Lake Zoar patrolmen plan to enforce the speed limit strictly.

Chief Steinfeld said a lake speed violation is an infraction, and thus will carry a fine.