Opinion | I’m all for more boat safety, but the new Minnesota permit test is hardly a solution

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I thought surely the big yellow boat would slow down as it raced toward the marina along the St. Croix River, its path intersecting with my own as I tried to get safely to shore. But instead, the other driver kept at speed, water spraying up from its sides and leaving a massive wake.

I turned the prow of my little 12-foot aluminum boat into the wake so it wouldn’t hit me from the sides, but to no avail. I rose up then slammed down as the first wave hit, sloshing water into my boat. The drenching threw off the equilibrium of my boat and it began to tilt backwards, water gathering in the stern and around my legs. More and more water came in with every few feet of progress.

Within a minute or two, I realized I was in trouble and instinctively grabbed the safety lanyard to kill the motor just as the boat started sinking. It flipped. I fell out. I lost most of my fishing gear, but wasn’t hurt, and began swimming the boat toward shore.

All of this is to say that I am 100% behind the idea that Minnesota boaters could be better trained in safety. The problem is that the new mandatory course and test to get a permit, a new regulation that went into effect at the beginning of this month, is unlikely to change behavior because it’s a terrible way to teach people. Moreover, the design of the program exemplifies one of my least favorite trends in government: treating it like a product, full of upselling and advertisement, rather than a service provided equally to all.

Here’s how the test to get a permit works: The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources page takes you to an online company that sells the tests. For $35 you can take a “textbook-style” course that divides everything you need to know about boat safety into nine chapters, then divides the topics into, on average, 15 separate web pages. You click on the page. A video plays. You can also read the text.

I reached out to boaterexam.com, but they referred me to the Minnesota DNR. Joe Albert, a communications coordinator, confirmed that there are two online course options, one with a minimum time requirement and the other that allows users to click through at their own pace.

“We know that parents signing their kids up for the course often want the version that the learner can’t simply click through, as this helps ensure the young person is reading and absorbing the material,” he said in an email. “The more expensive version, which is more interactive and thus requires more programming and support on the part of the vendor, tends to be for people who already have their watercraft operator’s permit and want a refresher, or for people who don’t have the permit but have a lot of experience on the water.”

I asked for any data about parental choices, but Albert said it was anecdotal.

Let me tell you, fellow parents, you can make your kids sit in front of a computer screen, but they will not learn much. Instead, they are more likely to click through as allowed, grow irritated, reach the “quiz” parts of the course (one for each chapter, then a final exam), enter the questions into a search engine or chatbot, and get the right answers about 90% of the time. (You need 80% to pass.)

This information is all public, online, and easy for automated programs to find. So unless the parent wants to proctor the kid for a couple of hours and make sure they don’t cheat, this won’t work. I genuinely was interested in boat safety, but as my irritation at the forced delays grew, I had trouble paying attention. I passed all the tests. I remember almost nothing.

I’ve just had enough of government services being “run like a business” and being contracted out to for-profit enterprises where people with more money get better service from our government. I don’t want pop-ups or add-ons being sold to me when interacting with my state.

When I grew up, everyone stood in the same line and went through the same screening. First-class passengers may have had better service on the inside of an airport, but that was commerce. Security was government and we all went through together, served equally. Now you can buy your way to a faster and easier screening through TSA PreCheck or Clear. The boat safety test isn’t as big a deal, but the pop-up windows to me are a sign of the times. Instead of building for the common good, everyone is just trying to make a buck.

We live in an era where government is being constantly undermined and derided by the American right, where the whole notion of the public good has come under attack. To respond, we need to support good government, promoting best practices and bringing people together. You can’t do that by outsourcing to a private vendor trying to upsell a better experience.