If you plan on taking out your boat this holiday weekend, the rules have changed. Iowa’s new drunken boating law takes effect today and is much like the “Operating While Intoxicated” or O-W-I law for motorists. Sonny Satre is recreational safety coordinator for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. He says it’s always been illegal to operate a boat while drunk, but now officers can test boaters.Satre says the amount of alcohol it takes to make a boater drunk varies.It depends on the weight of the person and the type of alcohol they drink. Satre says there’s one thing you can do to make any boating trip safer, wear a life jacket.Last year in Iowa, there were 86 boating accidents resulting in 61 injuries and six fatalities. There are 225-thousand boat operators in Iowa.
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