A permanent nighttime speed limit of 55 mph for snowmobiles went into effect last season after several years of a temporary limit. Now officials are trying to beef up drunken driving laws.
Minnesota and Michigan each link drunken recreational driving citations with motor vehicle licenses. Wisconsin does not.
That's a relief to many drunken snowmobilers Price and other wardens pull over.
"A lot of them ask 'will this affect my driver's license?' When we tell them no, their anxiety level goes away," Price said as he drove to a spot near Eagle River to patrol snowmobile trails until 3 a.m.
At a public hearing Tuesday on an Assembly bill that would toughen Wisconsin laws for intoxicated operation of snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles and boats, Rep. Louis Molepske (D-Stevens Point) said drunken motorists who lose their driver's licenses often hop on snowmobiles or ATVs and hit the bars.
"We have people dying in our lakes, we have people dying on our ATV trails, we have people dying on our snowmobile trails and we're treating this as a civil forfeiture," Molepske said.
Anyone convicted of driving a snowmobile with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08% or higher pays about $600 in fines and court costs, less for drunken driving tickets for boating and ATVs. The proposed bill would add suspension of ATV, snowmobile and boating privileges for 12 to 16 months on first offense.
For a second offense within five years of any drunken recreational driving - snowmobile, ATV or boat - offenders would face a fine up to $1,100, jail time of five days to one year, suspension of recreational vehicle operating privileges and revocation of their regular motor vehicle driver's license for six to 12 months.
A citation for one type of drunken recreational driving would count against another type of recreational driving. For example, a drunken boating citation followed by a drunken snowmobiling citation would be considered a second offense as long as it's within five years, under the proposal.
For more than a decade, various attempts to link drunken recreational driving to motor vehicle licenses have died in Wisconsin's Legislature. Molepske is confident that, this time, the law will change.
"Too many people think these recreational vehicles are vehicles for fun and weekend enjoyment," Molepske said. "I don't think anybody now will argue an ATV, snowmobile or boat doesn't have the same speed and potential for harm when someone's operating impaired - that somehow it's so much different than a car."
Rick Steimel has driven snowmobiles since 1965 and seen plenty of drunks on Wisconsin trails.
"Wisconsin's reputation for OWI operators is among the worst," Steimel testified at the public hearing at the Capitol. Revoking someone's driver's license, he said, "will be the single biggest deterrent."