Saturday, December 19, 2009
Plan ahead for a designated driver, a local OVI task force coordinator urges.
COLUMBUS — Mahoning County ranks seventh and Trumbull County 10th among Ohio’s 88 counties in arrests for intoxicated driving made by the Ohio State Highway Patrol over the last 23 months, the patrol reported.
Mahoning County had 1,207 arrests for operating a vehicle while intoxicated from Jan. 1, 2008, through Nov. 30, 2009, and Trumbull County had 1,089 during that time.
Franklin County, which includes Columbus, topped the list with 3,080 arrests.
Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties did not make the top 10 in a separate list that rank-ordered Ohio counties in number of felony-intoxicated driving arrests made by the patrol. Intoxicated driving becomes a felony for those with four or more convictions.
Officials say Lorain County west of Cleveland is this year’s top county for felony cases.
The state patrol said it timed the release of the numbers as motorists make plans for the Christmas and New Year’s weekends.
“Plan for that designated driver before you leave home,” urged Lt. Tony Bradshaw, a patrol spokesman in Columbus. Bradshaw urged revelers to program the telephone number of a cab company into their cellular phones in advance in case it’s needed.
“We want everyone to get home safely,” he said.
“We absolutely don’t encourage anybody to get behind the wheel of a vehicle after they’re had even one [alcoholic] drink,” said Tracy Styka, coordinator of the Mahoning County Operating a Vehicle Impaired Task Force.
“We encourage the use of sober designated drivers,” chosen before people go out for the evening, she said.
The consequences of impaired driving include court costs, lawyer fees, possible jail time, missed work time and a possible insurance premium increase, Bradshaw added.
“You could injure yourself or someone else, or ultimately even take someone’s life by choosing to drive impaired,” he said.
The patrol will increase the number of troopers on duty during peak holiday periods, Bradshaw said, adding that staffing patterns would vary among posts based on each post’s experience with local problem locations and times.
“We do have extra saturation patrols,” whose times and locations will vary among Mahoning County’s law-enforcement jurisdictions during the holidays, Styka said.
Many factors, including population and the concentration of state patrol posts and troopers, may affect the intoxicated-driving arrest rankings, Bradshaw said.
Every Mahoning Valley county has its own state-patrol post. Mahoning County ranked 10th in population in Ohio and Trumbull County ranked 12th, according to the 2000 Census.
The patrol arrests between 23,000 and 26,000 people annually on OVI charges, Bradshaw said. From Jan. 1 to Nov. 30, 2009, the patrol made 22,925 OVI arrests statewide.
BY THE NUMBERS
OVI arrests
Here are the top 10 of Ohio’s 88 counties in number of operating a vehicle while impaired arrests by Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers between Jan. 1, 2008, and Nov. 30, 2009:
kFranklin: 3,080
kButler: 1,992
kLucas: 1,817
kStark: 1,597
kLorain: 1,591
kMontgomery: 1,442
kMahoning: 1,207
kPortage: 1,205
kHamilton: 1,139
kTrumbull: 1,089
Source: Ohio State Highway Patrol