OVI arrests up around county
MOUNT VERNON — According to the Ohio State Highway Patrol and the Mount Vernon Police Department, the number of local arrests for Operating a Vehicle under the Influence of drugs or alcohol has increased dramatically in recent months.
2 Responses to “ OVI arrests up around county”
I agree that the increase in drunk driving offenses is partially from people in bad situations making bad decisions (unemployed / bankrupt…). Your other opinion that people are being targeted for simple violations just to increase revenue is off base. I don’t know about the city but I know the state gets little to no revenue from writing tickets. Unfortunately drunk drivers don’t have large flashing signs that say “I’m drunk, take me to jail”. So police have to stop people for seemingly “simple” violations in order to get the impaired drivers off the road. I have been stopped several times and was given a warning. I think a couple of minutes of my time is worth not getting hit head-on by a drunk driver on my way home.
I would not credit that so much to better police work. What’s really happening here is two factors, the first is economic disaster, people are suffering out there finacialy, mentally, and physically from the BAD economy so they are self medicating themselves to deal with the high stress. 2. The state, county, and cities are suffering from the economy as well so the officers are told to write more tickets to make up for some lost revinues. So people are being targeted more offten for simple violations and as a result the officers are finding more of these types of violations.