MONETA -- The Smith Mountain Lake Water Safety Task Force on Monday voted in favor of recommending a 55 mph daytime speed limit for boats and personal watercraft on the lake and a 25 mph nighttime limit.

The 11-member task force, composed of lake residents appointed by the Smith Mountain Lake Association, was created in September in the wake of a nighttime boating collision in August that killed a Moneta couple.

The task force approved the speed limits as part of a list of recommendations aimed at improving safety and increasing law enforcement presence at the lake. The lake is considered the state's most dangerous body of water because it has the highest percentage of accidents statewide.

The task force's recommendations will be presented to the General Assembly next year for proposed boating laws that could affect all bodies of water in Virginia except for coastal and tidal waterways.

"I would hope that they would listen to us," task force chairman Ralph Brush said of legislators.

The task force also agreed it wants a boat noise law recommended by the National Association of State Boating Law Administrators that calls for restricting the noise level of boat engines to 88 decibels at the vessel and 75 decibels near the shoreline.

After spending more than a month collecting accident statistics and other boating data regarding Smith Mountain Lake, the task force's other recommendations include:

n Asking the General Assembly to allow the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries to add 10 more game wardens, for a total of 19, to the localities that surround the lake -- Bedford, Franklin and Pittsylvania counties.

n Increasing the manpower of sheriff's deputies in those counties to help patrol the lake, especially during the summer when boat traffic is heaviest.

n Endorsing the creation of a regional Game Department headquarters on the Franklin County side of the lake.

n Requiring boats that pull water-skiers, tubers and wake boarders to have a spotter on board and requiring any person towed to wear a life jacket.

n Recommended that the Game Department increase the number of marked and unmarked patrol boats on the lake during peak spring and summer months to increase boater awareness of law enforcement.

Lt. Karl Martin with the Game Department said the agency is marking "DGIF Police" on boats in large letters so that boaters will more easily recognize the vessels.

Martin said the Game Department also is studying proposed legislation regarding boater education, increased manpower and other issues, but wouldn't comment on boat speed and noise regulations.

"I'm not in a position to make a recommendation," Martin said, "because the agency hasn't said."

Lori Dillon, vice president of the Smith Mountain Lake Power Boating Association, attended the meeting and said more enforcement of current laws and increased boater education, not speed limits, would do a lot to make the lake safer.

"I think those are the top two things right now," she said.

Brush said most lake residents think more laws are needed to tame the growing boating population.