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Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over campaign runs from now through Labor Day
By ROBERT CONNELLY
CANFIELD
Participating agencies in the Mahoning County Operating a Vehicle Impaired Task Force have kicked off the local “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” campaign.
“Our goal is to make the roadways in Mahoning County safer,” Scott Weamer, Canfield assistant police chief, said Friday. “We try to do that by changing the behavior of the motoring public. We want drivers to make better decisions about driving while impaired.”
The national campaign focuses on high visibility by authorities and continues through Labor Day, which this year is Sept. 7.
Weamer said the financial impact of impaired drivers’ crashes in 2010 was $49.8 billion. He said while there are critics of the OVI task force, he pointed to that financial impact and said money spent on checkpoints and additional patrols “is money well spent. We’re saving lives.”
Labor Day is targeted for the campaign because it is a holiday associated with increased highway travel and drunken driving, authorities said. Weamer said Labor Day is a “celebration of the end of summer, which culminates in the Canfield Fair.”
The educational aspect of the task force is Mahoning Safe Communities. It has partnered with 30 area bars and restaurants to display banners, magnets and disposable drink coasters with the campaign message on them.
Susan Viars is coordinator of Mahoning Safe Communities, which is based out of the New Middletown Police Department. She said those partnerships with local establishments are focused on Austintown, Boardman and downtown Youngstown, “but we try to hit all areas.”
Viars also said those 30 establishments include chain restaurants, such as Buffalo Wild Wings, or “mom and pop shops” such as the Pour House. “They’re appreciative to get this because No. 1, it’s free for them, and No. 2, they’re showing that they’re being responsible and they’re educating their staff to be responsible servers of alcohol,” she said.
Lt. Nakia Hendrix, commander of the Canfield Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, highlighted the number of crashes in Mahoning County this year – 14 crashes and 16 fatalities, and four of those crashes involved alcohol.
Hendrix said authorities “are doing a great job. We’re fortunate to have them in Mahoning County, but listening to those statistics and even the nationwide statistics, we still have an OVI problem.”
Weamer said there were 424 crash fatalities nationwide during Labor Day weekend in 2013 and that 48 percent of those crashes involved drivers who had been drinking.
The task force, from October 2014 to July, has arrested 72 people on OVI charges and has had 4,627 vehicles travel through checkpoints, on top of 2,919 vehicles stopped during saturation patrols operated in areas surrounding checkpoints.
Officers from these communities and enforcement agencies participate in the OVI task force: Austintown, Beaver, Boardman, Canfield City, Goshen, Jackson, Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office, Mill Creek MetroParks, Milton, New Middletown, Ohio State Highway Patrol, Poland Township, Springfield, Youngstown and Youngstown State University. The task force also is assisted by the Ohio Department of Transportation and the Mahoning County Emergency Management Agency.
Also happening this month is a “border to border” traffic initiative on Interstate 80 formed by the Iowa State Patrol and supported by the National Highway Safety Administration and all 16 state-patrol agencies. It will include all 16 states that have I-80 or Interstate 35 pass through it. There will be an increased presence of state troopers and other law-enforcement agencies on I-80 locally from Aug. 28-30 to coincide with “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over.”
After several fatal crashes in the I-80/Interstate 76 corridor, OSHP officials have been more visible there.
“We’ve definitely had an increased presence. Many people are still going too fast. We’re writing tickets every day,” Hendrix said. “There are people making good decisions and obeying the speed limit, but there are still way too many people out there making poor choices to drive erratically, follow too close, improper lane changes.”