COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio roads apparently just saw their safest Labor Day weekend in more than a decade.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol is reporting four fatal crashes during the period beginning this past Friday and ending Monday night, which in total claimed the lives of four people. According to officials, those numbers are the fewest the state has seen since statistics began being tracked in 2010.
Nationally, Labor Day weekend is typically the second-deadliest holiday weekend of the year when it comes to traffic fatalities, trailing only Thanksgiving. Troopers were on high alert over the four-day period, making more than 400 OVI arrests and issuing nearly 2,000 seatbelt citations at part of a total of more than 16,000 traffic enforcement stops.
Of the four deadly accidents, at least one resulted in the killing of a person from Northeast Ohio. Late Sunday night in Sandusky County, a pileup occurred when a pickup truck went left of center on U.S. Route 6 and struck three other vehicles. Twenty-year-old Vermilion resident David Walker II died in the crash, and six others were taken to the hospital.
The OSHP stresses these figures are provisional and subject to change. Last year, there were 17 traffic fatalities over Labor Day weekend.