Long Island boating accidents down 34% since 2019, year before safety law took effect

Boating accidents on Long Island waters have fallen by more than one-third since 2019, the year before New York State began requiring powerboat operators to complete maritime safety courses, a Newsday analysis found.

There were 104 boating accidents in Nassau and Suffolk counties in 2019, the year before the classes became mandatory under Brianna's Law. The accident total fell to 39 across both counties in 2024 before rising to 69 in 2025, according to reports compiled by the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. The requirement was phased in over five years, by age group, beginning in 2020. 

The law is named for Brianna Lieneck, an 11-year-old girl from Deer Park who died in a boating crash in August 2005 on the Great South Bay. Her death prompted discussions about safety on Long Island's waterways — and after many years, a policy change. 

The decline coincided with recent drops in boating fatalities on Long Island. There were no fatalities off Long Island waters in 2024 and three in 2025, the state data shows. The total has fluctuated over the past 20 years, reaching highs of nine in 2008 and 2012 and 10 in 2020. 

Nationwide, according to a U.S. Coast Guard report, the 556 recreational boating fatalities in 2024 represented an all-time low. Across the country, 69% of deaths happened when the boater lacked safety education, the report found.

Boating experts on Long Island attribute the decline to better enforcement and better education because of the law.  

The two factors have deterred drivers from making dangerous decisions, said Al Tuzzolo, a senior marine patrol officer with Southampton Town for the past 19 years.

“You had a vast majority of people, as far as boating went, who didn’t have any training,” Tuzzolo said. “You could go down and buy a 30-foot boat and get on it and drive away with no education.”

Officials say they have stepped up patrols and hired more staff to enforce boating laws in high-traffic waterways. In Babylon, for example, the town has added retired police officers to its ranks of bay constables. And the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department has extended its enforcement season into October as more boaters take to the waters in the fall. 

"At the very least, our presence seems to put people on alert, and that’s what we’re here for,” said Chris Fisher, a deputy Suffolk County sheriff.

Before Brianna's Law, only boaters born after May 1, 1996, were required to complete a safety course. As more enroll, bay constables from Oyster Bay to Riverhead are bolstering patrols to help curb dangerous boating.

A total of 62,558 boaters in the state completed the safety course last year. It was nearly triple the statewide total of 24,044 enrolled in 2005.

Brianna's mother, Gina Lieneck, 56, spent years lobbying for the mandatory safety classes. Lieneck, of St. James, said she believes Long Island waterways have become safer.

“I don’t think it’ll fix everything 100%, but it’ll make it better and make people think more,” she said.

On the lookout 

The diesel engine of Marine 41 rumbled on a late June morning as it pushed into the Great Peconic Bay. As the vessel cut through the waterway, a crew of Suffolk deputy sheriffs scanned the horizon.

The patrol was a routine one as the July Fourth holiday weekend approached. Not long after the vessel crossed the bay to the Shinnecock Canal, Jimmy Milano, a deputy sheriff, stared through the boat’s front windshield and shouted “portside.” A boat leaving the canal looked to be speeding.

A siren sounded, and the team of deputy sheriffs tied off the boat and began a safety inspection. The check revealed an empty fire extinguisher. Milano didn't issue a ticket, only a warning, and the boater went back to shore in search of a new one. "There's a lot of space that looks open, but it's not," he said of Long Island's waterways. "Response time is a lot longer on the water, and we don't want to see anyone get hurt or get killed."

Babylon Town bay constables Steve Jaworowski and Tobie Monaco were patrolling the Great South Bay on a late Monday afternoon in June when they passed a small boat with what appeared to be a group of teenagers.

Maneuvering the town's patrol into a U-turn, the constables flipped on their lights and siren and pulled alongside the 18-foot vessel.

“It’s five younger guys, we want to make sure they’re not drinking or doing anything unsafe or stupid,” Jaworowski said.

The driver, who was 18, consented and the constables went through their checklist, which called for life vests. The group began frantically pulling out the vests from beneath their seats to show that they had enough for everyone on board. Requests for a boating license and safety certificate were met with more frenzied searches, but the driver and passengers produced everything required.

“Have a good one. Be safe,” Monaco said with a wave.

“People are more aware that we’re out here and that we’re paying attention to what’s going on,” Jaworowski said. “I used to see a lot more accidents, more unsafe operations, deaths.”

More citations, arrest

Some municipalities are issuing more citations and conducting more arrests.

Southampton recorded 1,991 citations and arrests last year, nearly double the 1,021 total in 2020, according to town and state parks data. The town has seven full-time and eight part-time employees on the waters, more than double the levels from two decades ago.

Boating fatality figures have fluctuated across New York, the parks data shows. New York counted 19 boating deaths last year along with one disappearance, according to the parks department's annual report. There were nine boating fatalities in state waters in 2024, 18 in 2023, 28 in 2022, 18 in 2021, 31 in 2020, and 15 in 2019.

Christopher Squeri, the New York Marine Trades Association's executive director, had opposed Brianna's Law. He argued the measure would do little to address a major factor: boater inattentiveness. The recent data shows some positive trends, with low fatality rates across the state, Squeri noted. But he cautioned that requiring safety classes is not enough to make the waters safer.

“Education helps, but if you look at the statistics, operator inattention, alcohol and other issues are the number one cause of what we’re doing here,” he said.

Not 'party poopers'

Some boating educators said it'll take time to wrangle alcohol from maritime culture.

Alcohol and drug use contributed to more than 20% of fatal accidents between 2005 and 2025 across New York, according to the annual boating reports.

On a warm Friday evening in June, Oyster Bay town constables Rob Walles and Mike Baumann walked down the dock at the edge of John Burns Park in Massapequa and stepped on a 27-foot patrol boat. Their sights were set on the maze of interconnected waterways that run along the town’s South Shore.

Baumann steered the boat down a narrow channel toward Massapequa Cove into South Oyster Bay as the sun began to dip behind the waterfront homes.

Baumann said he once arrested a boater who was found to have a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit. Baumann’s grandparents were killed by a drunken driver when he was 3, he said. 

 Walles, who has been teaching boating safety classes for six years, acknowledged some resistance.

 “We don’t want to be party poopers or whatever, but there are things that will eventually lead to serious injuries that we want to try to control,” Walles said.

Nassau and Suffolk counties, along with the Suffolk sheriff's office and Southampton Town, have made few boating while intoxicated arrests in recent years, with the number fluctuating between zero and 4, municipal data shows.

Richard Werner, education director at Safe Boating America, a training company based in Bethpage, said divorcing alcohol from boating will take time and teaching.

“Boating while intoxicated is the biggest safety factor out there,” Werner said. “One billboard isn’t going to change somebody’s very nature. The more you talk about it, the more you see tragedies for others ... it slowly affects the majority of people.”

“That’s the only thing we can do," he said, is to "constantly talk about it."

Newsday's Denise M. Bonilla contributed to this story.