Bill outlaws hit-and-run boating accidents

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Hit-and-run boating accidents will soon clearly be a crime, under a bill passed Wednesday by the Senate.

It voted 27-0 to approve HB92 by Rep. Richard Greenwood, R-Roy, and sent it to Gov. Gary Herbert for his signature.

Greenwood introduced the bill after a University of Utah researcher was killed by a boat's propeller in Pineview Reservoir last summer, and the boaters fled.

The bill had been caught up in a power struggle between Greenwood and Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Margaret Dayton, R-Orem.

Greenwood complained that Dayton had held up the bill — which received no opposition in either House — in retaliation for Greenwood amending an unrelated Dayton bill. The House eventually erased that amendment, and the boating bill began advancing again.

— Lee Davidson