Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency officers arrested 31 people across the state for Boating Under the Influence (BUI) over the 4th of July Holiday period (Friday – Tuesday).
TWRA Lt. Col. Matt Majors said at least four of those arrests were made on Chickamauga or Nickajack Lakes, near Chattanooga.
Those individuals will be prosecuted under a new state law that went into effect July 1st.
In the eyes of the courts, BUI is now the exact same as a DUI with the same sentencing alternatives. That means anyone convicted on their first BUI faces a minimum 48 hours in jail and up to 29 days.
The first conviction for those with 0.20 percent or more of blood alcohol concentration is subject to a minimum of seven days in jail. Just like a DUI, second and third offenses carry even more severe penalties. There are stiffer penalties if the individual has a child on the boat at the time of a violation.
There can be wide variances, however this UT Chattanooga web page provides guidelines on what it takes for individuals to reach a 0.08 BAC.
Lt. Col. Majors said one good thing is that there were no boating fatalities in Tennessee over the holiday period.
“We did have nine injury incidents and nine property damage incidents,” he said. “There were also some drownings, which our officers don’t respond to, but there were no boating fatalities.”
Lt. Col. Majors said there appeared to be a normal amount of boats on the water for a holiday weekend, although he said intermittent storms that rolled across the state did run people off the water at times.
He said the number of boating fatalities across the state is about the same as last year at the same time, “However, we would always love for that number to be zero.”
