Expect a busy travel day on the roads as the holiday weekend comes to a close. AAA expects holiday travel to be almost at pre-pandemic levels this Labor Day weekend.
Ohio State Highway Patrol (OSHP) will also be amping up patrol efforts. A big focus during the holiday weekend will be stopping impaired drivers.
This time last year, OSHP made 515 impaired driving arrests in Ohio. There were also 16 deadly crashes that killed 17 people. Eight of those crashes involved alcohol and/or drugs.
“Statistics show that a typical first offense OVI will cost an individual proximately $5,000,” said Lt. Scott Kuntz, Post Commender for the Hamilton County Cincinnati Patrol Post for The Ohio State Highway Patrol. “There's continuing expenses out of that, because that's going to affect your insurance, your insurance rates are going to go up. It's going to affect your criminal record, if you're looking for another job.”
“There are much more ramifications that can occur to you, not just to others that you may hurt or kill,” he said.
Lt. Kuntz said the Hamilton County Cincinnati Patrol Post will work more than 169 hours of overtime this week. They’ll also be keeping an eye out for distracted drivers and speeding.
“During the pandemic, during quarantine, we saw a drastic increase in serious injury crashes,” he said. “We had fewer cars on the road because people were staying at home, but then quickly society realized, ‘Oh, there's not as many cars out here, I can drive faster.’ So we saw speeds in excess of 100 miles-an-hour skyrocket. Unfortunately, there's a lot of people still driving that way, so when you compile those very aggressive speeds with the increased traffic, it's a recipe for destruction.”
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