Minnesota Senate passes bills tightening state DWI laws
ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMSP) - The Minnesota Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill Wednesday that will apply the DWI law to snowmobiles and ATVs. The bill comes after 8-year-old Alan Geisenkoetter Jr. was killed by an intoxicated snowmobiler on Chicago Lake this winter.
Back in January, Geisenkoetter and his dad, Alan Geisenkoetter were out on Chisago Lake, which is about 50 minutes northeast of Minneapolis. The father was setting up for a night of fishing when a snowmobiler grazed the back end of their pickup, plowing directly into their ice house. Alan Jr. was right in the path and his father suffered some physical injuries of his own.
"Folks have to be understanding that there are other people out there besides themselves, and when they crank that thing open and they're going 100 miles an hour down the trail or across the lake," said Senator Bill Ingebrightsen, R-Alexandria.
HUFFING COMPRESSED AIR
The Minnesota Senate voted 62-4 Wednesday to modify DWI law to include huffing the chemical found in keyboard cleaner.
It's all part of an effort to broaden the state's driving while intoxicated law to include a number of new substances, like the popular household product "ultra duster" that a man sentenced this week in Wisconsin had used prior to a wrong-way crash that killed three Minnesota men last summer.