Some observations/thoughts
Some observations based on what I have read in this thread:
I personally think many boaters are NOT actually aware of the rule and/or some confuse the 150 distance, as I have often heard it cited as the 50 rule (likely adding to some of the problems/confusion)
I think most people struggle with judging 150 distance, visually its not and easy length to estimate, especially while moving. Though some of the tips like dock length are good/helpful.
While I have personally suffered some expensive cosmetic damage to my boats from excessive wake and boats passing by too closely, I do also think many land/home owners are often complaining about boats being too close when they are actually the full 150 out, its just not enough distance in some cases.
At the same time, if every home owner put a raft out at the legal limit, the lake would become very difficult to boat on as many common routes would become virtual no wake zones.
While I dont think most boaters are ignoring the rule, there are likely some that just dont care, and when you think its a blatant act, call the marine patrol.
I think the 150 should be treated as a target rather than a strict number, boaters need to focus on overall safety first (which absolutely includes distances from others, and objects and land) but if they are expending too much of their time at the helm calculating specific distance, other safety concerns will suffer and we need to strike a balance with many competing concerns. This one is a tough balance, its like the 1 car length for every ten miles per hour of road speed/safe following distance. Its clearly a good best practice that would reduce accidents and save lives and unfortunately at the very same time it will distract drivers and tax some of them to their limits making their overall operation less safe. Sorry, some people cannot juggle and ride the unicycle at the same time as playing the star spangled banner on the kazoo,,, Its not a perfect world.
While a novel idea, every homeowner putting out 150 markers would quickly become problematic, I can see all the cases where someone missed on and then got the line tangled in the prop and causing damage and maybe disabled boats.
Based on the concept above, it might be interesting to see if the GPS folks can add a 150 distance warning on their maps in a red outline or a dotted line or something like that to let boaters know where they are, but this could also become a distraction as discussed above. Tough balance to strike.
And finally, if everyone paid attention to safety first, were reasonably respectful, and did not fly into a rage when someone makes a mistake that no one was harmed, then we might all have a better experience at the lake.
Just a thought,,,
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