Another Entrepreneur Outsources Smart Business to the State

Within a story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch entitled “Zippy craft, young riders are making waves” (subtitle: “Missouri has joined Illinois in focusing on boating education certificates for younger boaters.”), we find an entrepreneur abdictating his responsibility to the state government, and to the taxpayers.

The business problem:

Another pair of wrecked Wave Runners. Just the latest.

One of them – a $3,500 machine that can hit 70 mph – sat with its front end sheared off outside Mike Lynn’s rental shop. The two watercraft had crashed in a game of “cat and mouse,” although both riders escaped injury.

Nine of 10 watercraft at Lynn’s Bikini Pier Rental, a shop in the shadows of the Grand Glaize Bridge, come back damaged.

Lynn lauds the solution:

But a new Missouri law effective Jan. 1 is aimed at curbing these accidents, especially among younger drivers, who need to be only 14 to pilot such a craft alone. State residents younger than 21 are now required get a boating safety identification card by passing a boater education course.

The new card is required to operate all motorized vessels on Missouri lakes, even when renting one. A card costs $15.

“It’s going to help. It’s got to help,” Lynn said. “I’m all for it.” [Emphasis added.]

Mr. Lynn favors state registration of young Seadoo riders because he is unwilling to forego renting to riders under 21 because that would cost him revenue. Instead, he wants to spend my money and add layers of government bureaucracy to license young people, which will result in a piece of paper they need to carry, and might reduce the 90% damage to his business’s property that is rented to these underage riders. Pardon me while I do the math:

.9 * (percentage of underage rentals * safer riding because of certification)

So if certification makes underage riders 25% safer, and if Lynn rents 25% of his business to people under 21 with the certification…. Crikey, man, I have a philosophy/English degree, not a degree in something useful like figurin’. Still, it seems like a small impact on Lynn’s bottom line.

But it’s a free impact since we the Missouri taxpayers are paying for it. Were I a strict entrepreneur, with nothing but the betterment of my business as my highest principle, goal, and directive, I would be all for it, too.