Beware Drinking and Driving …Your Boat!
Friends and
neighbors, lately there has been a considerable
amount of discussion about boaters on the San
Bernard who are, well… less than courteous.
Spring is in the air and soon there will be a
lot more people enjoying their freedom and their
boats on the river, and maybe some of them
“enjoy” this time just a bit too much at
times........
Below,
republished here by permission, is a blog from
Houston Chronicle outdoors writer,
Shannon Tompkins where he discusses the topic of
concern explaining what has traditionally been
done in cases of inebriated boaters and what is
proposed in this state’s legislative session.
More on Shannon Tompkins’ blogs (and there are
other topics of interest for those of us who
live on the San Bernard) can be found here:
http://blogs.chron.com/shannontompkins/
Continued evolution of Texas'
boating-while-drunk laws
It wasn't that long ago (the early 1990s, I
believe it was) that a person operating a boat
while intoxicated had almost nothing to fear
from law enforcement.
Texas' water safety laws said it was illegal to
operate a boat while intoxicated. But, unlike
motor vehicle rules, the boating law did not
define "intoxicated."
Game wardens apprehending an obviously wasted
boat operator faced a tough call. They could
charge the person with operating a boat while
intoxicated. But if the suspect fought the
charge in court, the case was invariably tossed;
without a definition of "intoxicated," it was
impossible to convict someone.
In most instances, wardens charged a drunk or
stoned boat operator with "reckless or negligent
operation" of a boat, a considerably lesser
charge but much easier to prove in court.
That lack of teeth in boating-while-intoxicated
laws caused a lot of gnashing of teeth among law
enforcement and a boating public increasingly
concerned with
boating accidents.
The
Texas Legislature
finally got around to changing the law, making
the definition of "intoxicated" the same for
boater operators as for drivers of motor
vehicles.
And over its past several sessions, the
Legislature has further tightened Boating While
Intoxicated (BWI) laws. Today,
BWI convictions carry serious penalties,
and game wardens and other law enforcement
officers use those rules to try making public
waters safer. Officers trying to take drunken
boat operators off the water would gain another
tool if a bill introduced this week makes it
though this 80th session of the Texas
Legislature.
Senate Bill 233
by Sen. Chris Harris, R-Arlington, would
authorize law enforcement agencies to establish
boating sobriety checkpoints on public waters,
much the same as sobriety checkpoints on
highways in some states.
SB 233 sets up defined procedures for such
on-the-water sobriety checkpoints. Included are
mandates that selection of watercraft to be
stopped "is reasonably predictable and
nonarbitrary," prohibition of an officer
requiring a field sobriety test unless the
officer has reasonable suspicion or probable
cause to believe the boat operator is
intoxicated, limiting the length of time and
frequency a boating sobriety checkpoint can be
operated at a single location and other
procedural requirements.
One of SB 233's mandates would be that law
enforcement agencies wanting to conduct boating
sobriety checkpoints publicize the operation of
such checkpoints, letting the boating public
know such operations are out there. The bill
would not require law enforcement to disclose
the specific date, time or location of the
sobriety checkpoints.
