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Thanksgiving Traffic Deaths Increase From Last Year

Photo of traffic
Jo Ingles

The Thanksgiving holiday was deadly on the state’s roads.   

The Highway Patrol reports at least 16 people were killed in 11 fatal traffic accidents across the Buckeye State. Seven of those who died in crashes during the five-day holiday reporting period -- from Wednesday through Sunday -- were not wearing seat belts. One of those killed was a pedestrian.

This Thanksgiving weekend’s death toll is an increase over the nine killed on the roads in each of the past two years. Troopers also arrested 542 drivers for operating a vehicle while impaired, a jump of more than 15 percent over last year.

Troopers also made almost 300 drug arrests, a nearly 45 percent increase over the numbers from last year.

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.