State Highway Patrol warns about Impaired Driving

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – As the weekend approaches the New Year party details are finalized. To most this time of year is fun, but to our law enforcement this time of year is the most dangerous.

Ohio State Highway Patrol, Zanesville Post Commander, Lieutenant Matt Boyd said impaired driving due to drugs and or alcohol is a lot of times increased around the holiday weekends. The Ohio State Highway patrol will be out and when necessary they’ll provide a Field Sobriety Test or call an expert to run a series of tests to determine if the driver has an alcohol or drug impairment.

“It’s been pretty typical that about a third of the traffic crashes that result in fatalities are drug or alcohol related, impaired driver related,” said Boyd. “The problem we’re seeing more of is that the drug impaired drivers are on the rise and you know we’re working to combat that problem. We have Drug Recognition Experts, that we have trained in the patrolling and with other agencies.”

Boyd said this year they’ve had three fatalities due to someone having drugs or alcohol in their system.

“The problem is a lot of times increased over the holiday weekend, You know there’s more people out partying and more things going on,” said Boyd. “Last year from Christmas Eve through New Years there were 27 people killed in 24 crashes and nine of those were related to impaired drivers with ten people killed at the hands of impaired drivers.

Boyd said Ohio’s Host Liability Laws will affect any private host or public facility serving alcohol to where they need to ensure no one drives home impaired for the host can be held liable both criminally and civilly.