Police set to patrol waters
By ELAINE VAN DEVELDE
Staff Writer

MIDDLETOWN — On land or sea, traffic laws are traffic laws. In line with that thinking, police are hitting the bay areas this summer to remind water-vehicle operators that driving rules apply in both places.

There’s nothing new about having a local police presence in the Navesink River and Raritan Bay waters of Middletown, according to Police Chief John Pollinger. While the "primary responsibility of the water rests with the N.J. State Police’s Marine Bureau," the township’s police department has always had two boats staffed with a contingent of volunteers certified for water patrol.

Now about 10 "sworn-in officers will back up the efforts of those volunteers on a rotating basis as manpower permits, merely to enhance, not replace in any way, the state marine police presence," Pollinger said. Those 10 officers underwent marine police training at the State Police Academy in Sea Girt, he added.

The volunteers are members of the Middletown Auxiliary Police. Of the 60 auxiliary police, about a third were assigned to patrol the waters in the past, independent of the auxiliary force, Pollinger explained. Now all the auxiliary police are operating under the same wing under the supervision of Lt. Robert Morrell, special operations commander.

In the past, in Middletown waters, there have been problems with violations of waterway rules.

"Just as a certain percentage of motorists, by nature, violate laws of the road, that same percentage exists on the water when jet skiers and drivers of pleasure craft encroach on swimming areas," Pollinger said.

"Eighty-five percent of the driving public drives in a reasonable and prudent manner," he said. "That 85-percent figure is proven in the way that speed limits are set. Unmarked cars with radar sit in a non-enforcement capacity and monitor traffic. Through that sort of system of honor, it’s been found that people tend to stay within the laws. There is, as with anything else, that remaining 15 percent that takes advantage and oversteps normal laws of reason and prudent behavior."

The township’s police department wants to transfer the laws of the road and target that 15 percent of the population that characteristically steps out of bounds on sea, as well as on land, he said. The officers will issue summonses when a violation occurs to "reinforce the protection of Middletown residents," Pollinger said.