Boating Under the Influence Penalties in Wisconsin

Question: What is boating under the influence? What are the penalties in Wisconsin?

Answer: Boating under the influence is set up to track OWI in a vehicle as much as possible under the statutes. So if you are over a .08 and you’re in a boat on a public waterway or a public lake or anything like that, you could be subject to being stopped and investigated for boating under the influence. And there’s some other provisions. Just like with OWIs, if you’re a commercial driver then you have a .04 requirement, and different  things like that. The penalty structure is quite different, however, because it is boating and not OWI. So, for example, if you had a boating OWI ticket, it would not affect your drivers license for motor vehicles. And a boating OWI also is not criminal, unless under some circumstances there’s some injuries that would be involved in an accident or something like that. So it doesn’t necessarily affect your drivers license. It wouldn’t be a criminal charge, it would be kind of a separate administrative action.