Alcohol is a common factor in the rising number of off-road vehicle crashes and fatalities reported in Wisconsin. Legislators from both sides want to beef up state OWI laws, arguing that will make the vehicles safer.
By Annie Pulley, THE BADGER PROJECT
In April, a woman in Green Lake County was driving three passengers on a UTV when she took a curve too quickly. The vehicle rolled and hit a tree head-on. One passenger died at the scene and a second just days later. The 26-year-old driver’s blood alcohol concentration was three times the legal limit, according to the police report.
So far this year, 18 people have died in fatal crashes on off-road vehicles like ATVs and UTVs statewide, according to data reported by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The latest reported fatality was June 13, when a 71-year-old ATV driver collided with a UTV while both vehicles were cresting a hill. The man was pronounced dead at the scene.
Alcohol was involved in at least four of the deaths reported so far in 2026. Blood alcohol results are still pending in 11 of those fatalities.
Riding off-road vehicles is becoming an increasingly popular pastime in Wisconsin. The total number of registrations for these vehicles has increased by about 20% since 2020, according to the state DNR.
Crashes and fatalities are also on the rise. Drugs and alcohol are involved in about half of those crashes, said Jacob Holsclaw, an off-highway vehicle administrator for the DNR.
“In a lot of those cases, if the folks had not been drinking and driving, they may even still be alive today,” he said. “I think that’s an important thing to remember.”
Forty-two people died in a crash on an ATV or UTV last year, a 90% increase since 2015, according to DNR data. There were 300 total crashes reported in 2025, about a 45% increase from 10 years ago. A rise in the number of UTV crashes significantly contributed to that increase. About 30% of the fatalities in 2025 involved alcohol or THC, and toxicology results are pending for a handful of those fatalities.
In recent years, municipalities have opened more roads to ATVs and UTVs across the state. All-terrain vehicles, or ATVs, often seat just one passenger and are steered by handlebars like a motorcycle. Utility-terrain vehicles, or UTVs, allow the passenger and driver to sit side-by-side, and drivers control the vehicle with a steering wheel. UTVs are generally larger and often include a partially enclosed cabin that can seat four.
Drivers of both vehicles can now operate them across more than 65,000 miles of roadway. Unlike snowmobiles, ATVs and UTVs aren’t as weather-dependent and can be used all year, especially during mild winters. In some communities, it’s normal for people to use their recreational vehicles for everyday errands. Holsclaw said the pandemic also contributed to the upward trend in their use.
With more people using off-road vehicles, more people will get hurt, he said. The tires aren’t designed for pavement, and the vehicles handle differently than cars, another reason “it’s really important that folks are driving sober,” Holsclaw said. Riders tipped or rolled their machines in more than half of the fatal crashes last year.
Driving an ATV or UTV while drunk and on property open to the public is illegal in Wisconsin. Even if drivers don’t exceed the 0.08 limit, they can be stopped, cited and arrested if law enforcement believes they are impaired, Holsclaw said. It’s about coordination and reaction time, he said. But the penalties are lighter than for cars.
Drivers convicted of a first offense for operating an off-road vehicle while intoxicated – a civil forfeiture and not a crime – would pay a $450 fine, Holsclaw said.
“It is a fair amount less than the motor vehicle world,” Holsclaw said. “It is unfortunate that the fines are lower because it almost sends the message that an OWI is not as important.”
A first offense for an OWI in a motor vehicle comes with about a $700 bill and a license revocation.
But regulating alcohol use in the recreational vehicle world is different, Holsclaw said. Some people don’t want to be told what to do. And in Wisconsin, drinking is a part of the culture.
“That’s all well and good as long as you’re not operating a vehicle,” Holsclaw said.
The state DNR’s power to tighten gaps in law is limited.
Its most recent batch of regulations, which went into effect June 1, closed a loophole by requiring both passengers and operators in UTVs to wear seatbelts. Taken literally, state law had only required passengers to wear them. Even still, the DNR can’t change the fact that an OWI from an ATV or UTV doesn’t affect your driver’s license, Holsclaw said. If it did, maybe that would keep people from driving drunk.
More substantive change “comes down to the state representatives,” Holsclaw said. “They’re the ones that have to make that decision.
Waiting for ‘a new day in Madison’
Lawmakers in Madison have tried and failed to toughen state law that regulates the overlap between alcohol use and recreational vehicles. Both Democratic and Republican legislators say the Tavern League, the state’s influential beer lobby, has stymied serious progress.
When it comes to drinking and driving cars and ATVs, “Wisconsin has among the worst laws in the country,” said state Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee).
Larson – who said he lost a good friend in a head-on collision with a repeat drunk driver when he was in high school – believes special interests like the Tavern League have helped keep things the way they are.
The league did not respond to requests for comment.
At the moment, if a person gets their first OWI on an ATV and soon after gets their first OWI while driving a snowmobile, the courts treat them both as first offenses.
“They don’t talk to each other,” Holsclaw said.
OWIs for automobiles also accumulate separately.
In 2019, a bipartisan band of legislators tried to change how this works. If they had succeeded, the person in the earlier scenario would instead have a first and second-offense OWI, the latter of which is a misdemeanor. The bill would also have restricted people from operating recreational vehicles like snowmobiles, boats or UTVs if their driver’s license was currently suspended because of a normal OWI.
But the bill failed. When lawmakers resurrected the attempt in 2021, it died again.
The 2021 bill passed seamlessly out of its committee in the state Senate, Larson said but then stalled for nine months and eventually died.
“That’s unfortunately the power of some special interests who don’t want to change the law,” Larson said, “but I think that they are coming out of power.”
The senator said he believes the influence of organizations like the Tavern League will fade in parallel with the Republican majority, which must now face competitive political maps it didn’t draw for the first time in nearly two decades.
The powerful lobbying organization that advocates for bar owners did not register in opposition to the 2021 bill, according to the Wisconsin Ethics Commission website. Instead, Larson said the organization often works through long-established expectations that lawmakers won’t advance bills related to drunk driving.
“There’s just an agreement that they know they don’t have to lift a finger or do anything, but the Republicans are beholden to that interest group,” Larson said.
But not all Republicans. State Sen. André Jacque, a Republican from the Green Bay area who is retiring at the end of the year, also worked on the 2021 bill and similarly criticizes how the Tavern League operates. He said it exercised its “silent veto” to put the 2021 bill to sleep.
“I would argue that in some cases there are groups that fail to indicate the actions that they have taken to stop legislation,” Jacque said, referencing how the state requires lobbyists to register with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission and report their activity.
The fight isn’t over, though. Under the right circumstances, Jacque said, the bill could return. He said law enforcement wants tougher laws. Other states already have them.
In Minnesota, a first offense for driving an off-road vehicle while impaired is a crime that could result in up to a $1,000 fine and 90 days in jail. In Wisconsin, the same offense results in a fine but no jail time. Unlike in Minnesota, your driver’s license won’t be affected if you get busted for driving an ATV or UTV while drunk in Wisconsin.
More recently, Wisconsin lawmakers tried to ban having open containers of alcohol in or on off-road vehicles. No groups registered in opposition to the bipartisan bill, but it failed in April 2024.
That bill would have been relevant in the fatal crash in Green Lake County where law enforcement found empty containers of alcohol strewn about the crash site.
Larson said people want common-sense drunk driving laws in Wisconsin.
“It’s going to be a new day in Madison,” Larson said.
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