The penalty for drinking while driving a boat just got tougher. Yesterday, Governor Cuomo signed the “Tiffany Heitkamp’s” Law closing a loophole and now linking prior convictions for drinking while driving a vehicle. Courts are now required to consider prior convictions for impaired driving a vehicle when sentencing. The law is named after a young Syracuse-area woman who was killed in July 2006 while traveling as a passenger in a boat operated by an intoxicated person. In that case, the boat operator, who had prior drunk driving convictions, could only be charged as a first time offender because the laws for boats and cars were not linked.
