Highway Patrol Talks Holiday OVIs

MUSKINGUM COUNTY, Ohio-The Ohio State Highway Patrol is gearing up for an increase in drunk driving for the holiday season. 

The Zanesville Post of the patrol is spending overtime hours to enforce drunk driving. Lieutenant Russell Pasqualetti says that even COVID isn’t expected to deter drunk driving. 

“Generally on any major holiday we will see an increase in OVI activity. We’re expecting that this upcoming holiday season, even with COVID. We’ll see some differences. There won’t be the bars and the major venues and things of that nature but we still expect to see the same volume, the same percentage of OVI drivers.” , Pasqualetti told WHIZ on Monday morning.

OVI citations will be prosecuted by the county. Drunk driving laws are in place to protect lives. Drunk driving makes up a large portion of highway deaths. 

“Last year there were eleven hundred people killed on Ohio’s roads in traffic crashes. OVI drivers accounted for about forty percent of that so just over four-hundred people were killed by OVI drivers. That’s why we’re doing this, why we’re enforcing this. We’re trying to get people off the road. There’s no reason to be drinking and driving, there’s so many ways to avoid it. Just plan ahead, designate a driver, call for a ride.”, Pasqualetti continued.

In 2019 the Zanesville post arrested four hundred and thirty OVI drivers.