• Home
  • News
    • Politics & Government
    • Business & Economy
    • Crime / Courts
    • Health / Medicine
  • Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Radio Iowa Poll
  • Affiliates
    • Affiliate Support Page
  • Contact Us
    • Reporters

Radio Iowa

Iowa's Radio News Network

You are here: Home / Crime / Courts / Iowa Senate votes to toughen drunken boating law

Iowa Senate votes to toughen drunken boating law

January 27, 2009 By admin

The Iowa Senate has voted to toughen the standard for judging who is too drunk to drive a boat. While the blood alcohol limit for driving a vehicle was lowered to 0.08 a few years ago, the standard for piloting a boat while drunk has remained at 0.10.

Senator David Johnson, a Republican from Ocheyedan, has long sought to make the standards identical for drunken driving and drunken boating. "In 2007 and 2008, there were 61 arrests for boating while intoxicated in this state…and that was over the .10 limit, but during that same time 168 people were field tested and had a blood alcohol concentration between .08 and .099," Johnson says.

It means, according to Johnson, that those boaters could have been picked up for drunken driving soon after that if they got on the roads. "In that case, they could take their boat out of the water, put it on the trailer and head down the roads and highways of this state and they’d be considered — if arrested and tested — they could be charged with drunken driving," Johnson says.

Johnson argues Iowa Department of Natural Resources officers who patrol the state’s lakes and rivers won’t be out to "get" drunken boaters. "They’ll launch an educational program. This is really to bring safety into this," Johnson says. "There have been some tragic accidents. The General Assembly has heard discussion of those things…where there have been some fatalities. There have been some serious injuries."

The drunken boating bill passed the Iowa Senate on a 49-1 vote this afternoon. In 2007, the senate unanimously passed a similar bill, but the bill died in the House.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Filed Under: Crime / Courts, Fires/Accidents/Disasters, Politics / Govt, Recreation / Entertainment Tagged With: Democratic Party, Department of Natural Resources, Legislature, Republican Party, Travel

Featured Stories

ISU survey finds farmland value up slightly

Senator Grassley: Justice Department report confirms abuse of power by FBI

Ankeny man charged for shooting 6 trumpeter swans

DNR asks hunters for deer samples to continue CWD monitoring

Biden calls man quizzing him at town hall ‘a damn liar’

TwitterFacebook
Tweets by RadioIowa

Upper Iowa football coach Tom Shea steps down

Hawkeyes and Cyclones both face big name bowl opponents

Iowa State’s Campbell agrees to contract extension

Epenesa and Duncan honored by B1G

Iowa’s Nunge sidelined by knee injury

More Sports

eNews and Updates

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Archives

Copyright © 2019 ยท Learfield News & Ag, LLC