COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio State Highway Patrol has released its annual report on traffic activity that occurred over the New Year's holiday weekend.
According to officials, 11 people died in a combined nine fatal crashes between Friday and Monday, with OVI a factor in 2/3 of the crashes and eight of the 11 victims not wearing their seatbelts. While it's the lowest fatality number in three years, it's still the third consecutive New Year's that the figure is in double digits.
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In all, the state saw 390 traffic crashes over the weekend, along with 214 OVIs. Both of those figures were down from a year ago, by 15% and 8%, respectively.
Of the fatal crashes, at least one of them occurred in Cleveland late on New Year's Day, where a 35-year-old woman was killed and two others injured on Interstate 90 near the I-71 split. The cause of that incident has not been revealed.
The 11 fatalities this year are lower than the four-year peak of 14 in 2020-21 as well as the 12 in 2021-22. Just four people died on the roads in 2019-20.