When you're on a river like this, STOPPED.
You most, as captains without warning radar, keep passengers safe.
He saw it long far away than the video shows. And should have prep to evade.
You sound like you're blaming the victims here. How long do you assume the people had from seeing the speeding boat approaching them until it struck?
The older man who was driving the boat actually made the argument that he couldn't see the smaller boat because he was sitting down.
This seems like a clear case of negligent or reckless operation of a motorboat, whether the man driving the boat was looking at his cellphone (as his son-in-law claims he was doing quite a bit) or not. I'm not sure what the rules of boating are in that area, but it seems unlikely that the passengers of the boat which was struck should have been prepared for a larger boat speeding directly into them like that.
The above seems to be the facts so far. I questioned what the smaller boat did. Waving? FFS! The cap should have tried to move the boat. From the longer video, it was far away from them where I could have moved the boat. As a Captain with passengers I prep boat for these events. Even if the anchor was down here.
Seems it was not btw. Start- Full Power turn port or starboard there was time. Plus if he was at/in the center of the entry from the sea, It appears to be in the middle travel lanes where boats are still on GPS autopilot at least.
This is where you need to be extra on alert in smaller boats ready to move. If they were up the river, most areas are only 1500 feet wide or less and he looked in the of travel lane fully.