Picture this: Your next-door neighbor gets into a new Maserati, starts the engine, floors the gas pedal and goes speeding down the interstate. The only thing is, he doesn't actually have a driver's license. In fact, he's never actually been behind the wheel of a car and has no idea what all those traffic signals and signs mean.

It's scary, eh? And it's illegal, too.

Now substitute the words 38-foot powerboat for Maserati, and replace the driving terminology with crowded channel, rules of the road, and boating safety course. The scenario is just as frightening–and more real than you might think.

Opponents say licensing is unnecessary, but supporters say it helps get bad boaters off the water. Support may be building for licenses. You need a license to drive a car, a motorcycle or a piece of heavy machinery like a tractor or dump truck, but in a boat all you need in most cases are the keys. There is often nothing preventing an unlicensed and unlearned boater from taking the wheel of a six-ton sailboat or a trawler with 400 horsepower. On the water, it seems, almost anything goes.

SAILING BLIND

Unlike would-be car drivers, boaters don't actually have to pass a test to prove they can operate a vessel, or demonstrate that they can "park" in a slip. While the occupants of a car must wear safety belts, few states require boaters to wear life-jackets. Unless you're operating a personal watercraft, like a Jet Ski or Sea-Doo, there's usually no minimum age.

Only Alabama requires that boaters obtain licenses at all, and that's actually just an "endorsement" stamped on a boater's regular driver's license–similar to the one needed to operate motorcycles or big trucks–that shows he has successfully completed an approved boating safety course, either in class or online. Boaters who don't have drivers' licenses can obtain special photo I.D. cards with a endorsement for operating vessels.

For now, there's little enthusiasm in other states to go even that far toward licensing boaters. Major interest groups such as BoatUS (the Boat Owners Association of the United States) are still adamantly opposed to what they characterize as licensing for licensing's sake. And both federal and state lawmakers have been reluctant to put the issue on the table.

But the times may be changing, if slowly. The National Transportation Safety Board, the independent federal agency that investigates serious accidents involving all forms of transportation, has stepped up the call for boater licensing–a measure the agency has been urging regularly since a 1993 study that focused on the issue.

Last June, Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen proposed requiring recreational boaters to meet minimum proficiency standards and to carry a photo identification card to show boarding officers. The draft legislation he finally sent Congress this past summer, watered down from his original suggestion, falls short of mandating federal boat operators' licenses.

Instead, it would require boaters to take an approved boating safety course and would permit Coast Guard boarding officers to demand to see a boat operator's driver's license–something that, surprisingly, they are not authorized to do under current law unless they have probable cause.

CROWDED WATERS

The reason for the new emphasis is simple: While license-free boating may have been okay in the past when the waves seemed to easily outnumber boaters, the number of recreational boats has grown dramatically in recent years. Boats are also a lot bigger these days, and their engines are far more powerful. The result is that waterways are more crowded.

Yet in most states, you don't need a license – or even a safety course – to take the helm. Although more than 40 states claim they require boaters to take boating safety courses, few require all boaters to do so. About half those states have boater education laws that affect only children or teenagers – mainly those who want to operate personal watercraft. And 18 states exempt boaters who are middle-aged or elderly.

Moreover, boating courses in most states are rudimentary. While they include a smattering of nautical rules of the road, many omit the bulk of the regulations and descriptions of navigational aids that critics say boaters ought to know in order operate a vessel on anything but a small lake.

To date there are no states that require new boat operators to demonstrate their skills – taking the helm, maneuvering in a narrow channel and docking–under the watchful eye of a state examiner, the way automobile drivers must show that they can properly steer, turn and park.

While the number of boating-related fatalities nationwide is down 23 percent from 15 years ago – to 710 in 2006, from 924 in 1991 – the total has been back on the rise during the past two years from a low of 676 in 2004, according to the Coast Guard's latest statistics.

"The current situation is appalling," says Bill Gossard, the NTSB's spokesman for recreational boating safety, referring to the number of boaters who don't have any training and can't follow the rules because they simply don't know them. "We need to make sure that people know what they're doing, whether they're driving a cabin-cruiser or a kayak."

THE CASE FOR LICENSING

Proponents say that licensing programs would help law-enforcement authorities in two ways. First, they would provide visible proof that boaters have completed mandatory boater education courses, which all sides agree are necessary. The second benefit is that procedures to revoke a boater's license could be implemented, giving authorities a way to get abusive boaters off the water.

Gossard said there's no doubt that licensing would make boating safer. "If you have licensing, everybody would have to have some boating education," he said. "And it's easier to enforce safety laws. With autos, if you find a drunk driver, you can get him off the roads. Licensing would enable us to remove boaters who are under the influence as well."

In Alabama, boating accidents fell 12 percent the year after licensing was implemented.

Alabama's experiment with boater licensing has been a success, state law enforcement authorities say. In 1998, after two widely-publicized boating accidents that took the lives of three children, the state began requiring all boaters to obtain licenses before they could operate a power-driven vessel. To qualify, you have to pass a written exam.

The impact was immediate: A year later, the number of boating accidents in Alabama fell by 12 percent. Injuries dropped 4 percent and fatalities plunged by 47 percent. The numbers have been declining with near-regularity ever since.

The licensing requirement covers anyone who operates a power-driven vessel, no matter how small. Today some 600,000 Alabama boaters are licensed.

Capt. Bob Huffaker, chief of operations for the Alabama Marine Police, says the arrangement has given authorities a powerful enforcement tool by enabling authorities to revoke the licenses of abusive boaters.

So far this year, the state has suspended the licenses of 66 boaters, most of them for drunk-boating violations, according to Lieutenant Erica Shipman, who heads the Marine Police Department's licensing division. Refusing to submit to a sobriety test results in an automatic 90-day suspension. There were 28 suspensions from 2005 to 2006.

"The licensing law has done an enormous amount of good here," said Huffaker, who is the state's acting boating laws administrator. "We have a better-informed and better-educated boating public, and the new law has been well-received. It's an accepted fact now that if you're going to boat here, you have to have a license."

FINANCIAL IMPACT

Alabama's law requires boaters to complete an approved boating safety course successfully–either an eight-hour class that the state conducts or similar courses offered by the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary or the U.S. Power Squadrons. The state also offers an online course.

If you can pass the Alabama exam without actually taking the course, you can skip the classroom or online sessions altogether. Holders of U.S. Coast Guard merchant marine licenses can simply submit copies of their Coast Guard certificates to obtain the state endorsement.

To avoid overloading boaters' wallets, Alabama doesn't issue separate boating license cards. Those who qualify have the boating endorsement stamped on their drivers' licenses, which have special letter symbols for autos, motorcycles and marine vessels. Non-drivers are issued a special driver's-license-style card that only shows a "V," for vessel.

There's a $5 application fee, plus a one-time $23 "issuance" fee. Unlike driver's licenses, the certification does not have to be renewed.

COAST GUARDA boater under arrest for boating under the influence submits to a breath test. Licensing boaters would allow authorities to get chronic offenders off the water.

The state Marine Police enforce the licensing law in two ways–by setting up on-the-water checkpoints, and by requiring boaters to show their licenses when accidents occur. If a boater's record contains drunk-driving convictions, officials say they go for maximum penalties, citing the boater for whatever violations they can find, such as having an inadequate number of life-jackets on board.

Alabama maintains a points system, as most states do for driving violations, that determines what fines and other punishments will be levied. If a boater racks up three violations during a 12-month period, revocation of the boating license is mandatory.

ANTI-LICENSE SENTIMENT

Despite Alabama's satisfaction with the new system, the scheme hasn't yet persuaded other states to adopt boater-licensing laws.

One large factor is that BoatUS, the nation's largest boating organization and the industry's most powerful lobbying group, opposes boater licensing. BoatUS, like the National Rifle Association and other membership-based lobbies, has built a reputation among its members for vigorously defending boaters from what it perceives as added hassles or costs.

While the group says it strongly supports mandatory boating education for boaters, and is comfortable with requiring boaters to carry some form of identification while they're out on the water, it opposes issuing separate ID cards, which it contends would amount to hassling boaters.

"The licensing approach is not going to control what somebody does on the waterways," says Nancy S. Michelman, BoatUS's new president. "It's the educational part of the equation that's important. Licensing would be yet another step, another process and sometimes an additional cost to people getting out on the water. It's not going to affect safety."

Last month, Boat US conducted a survey of its membership. Of those who responded, 69 percent said they favored mandatory boater education, and 75 percent said they would have no objection if they were asked to produce a driver's license. The survey also asked its members whether they would "favor boat operator licensing." BoatUS won't release the results on that question.

Michelman argues that the idea that licensing is needed because boating has become more dangerous "is not substantiated by the numbers." She cites Coast Guard figures showing that the rate of recreational boating fatalities per 100,000 boats has plunged by 75 percent since 1971, while the actual number of deaths has declined by 58 percent.

Even so, the distinctions on the licensing issue are narrowing. BoatUS says it agrees that boaters should have to pass a boating safety course and carry identification, but opposes licensing if it involves issuing separate cards.

AN ISSUE OF SEMATICS?

Where you stand on issuing separate licenses depends upon where you sit. Alabama's Lieutenant Shipman said the main complaint her department receives from boaters is that "some people don't like the fact that we stamp the boating operator's endorsement on their driver's license. They'd rather have a separate card for boating."

At this point, the differences between BoatUS's position and the Alabama model appear partly a matter of semantics–that is, do you actually call the license a license, or simply a certificate showing that a boater has taken a mandatory boating safety course?

Nevertheless, the odds are slim that big changes will come unless there are some dramatic accidents to spur the nation–and the boating community–into action. That's what it took in Alabama, Capt. Huffaker said. But it is harder to push a system of change through for the nation as a whole.

Admiral Allen acknowledged the political mood when he proffered his proposal last June, telling a group of state legislators: "What I'm trying to do is to kind of stick my toe in the water and see if I get bit by a piranha."

And he did. Some 300 federal, state and boating industry officials at a national small vessel security summit that the Department of Homeland convened June 19 and 20 concluded that requiring boaters to obtain licenses was impractical. Instead, they recommended that boaters be required to carry other photo-I.D. cards, much as they do when they fly on an airline. But that may prove to be just a shot across the bow.

Art Pine is a veteran journalist who has served as a Washington correspondent for the Baltimore Sun, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. He is a licensed captain and a longtime Chesapeake Bay sailor.