Thanksgiving Day may be big for family gatherings, but according to the American Automobile Association — and local law enforcement — the night before is big for partying.
Particularly among college-age young adults who reunite with hometown friends at the start of their holiday breaks from school, Thanksgiving Eve has become known as “Blackout Wednesday” — an allusion to the Black Friday shopping crush just after the holiday — or “Drinksgiving,” the auto club said. And combined with revelry on the holiday itself, Thanksgiving now is accompanied by a spike in drunken-driving crashes and fatalities that rivals New Year’s Eve, according to a AAA news release.
“It is not the food, it’s the booze,” Bob Kazmierczak, an AAA spokesman, said in a statement citing a AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety survey finding that 1 in 8 drivers admits to having driven while impaired during the past year, and 9 percent more than once.
“We fear drunk drivers, but we don’t practice what we preach,” Mr. Kazmierczak said. “There is a big disconnect in our actions and words.”
Last year in Ohio, alcohol was cited as a factor in four of nine fatal traffic crashes during the five-day Thanksgiving holiday travel period, the auto club said. It also cited Insurance Information Institute data from 2014 showing that year’s Thanksgiving holiday to have the most fatal traffic crashes of any holiday period that year, with Labor Day second and Christmas third.
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Lucas County Sheriff John Tharp said that while he has no data specific to Thanksgiving Eve, it is well known among local law enforcement that this night has become an impaired-driving hot spot.
“A lot of young people come home for Thanksgiving, and they’re getting together with old friends in their homes, at bars, and at restaurants,” Sheriff Tharp said. “... It’s one of the highest-drinking nights of the year. They’re excited about seeing each other again, and they’re celebrating.”
The sheriff said that while no additional, targeted enforcement is planned today, sheriff’s deputies will be vigilant for intoxicated drivers. He urged revelers to be careful about their behavior and enlist designated drivers where appropriate.
“We need to take a common-sense approach,” Mr. Tharp said. “Families and friends need to watch out for each other.”
The Toledo Police Department last week announced that it would assign supplemental patrols during the Thanksgiving weekend, with officers working overtime shifts paid for by a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration grant administered through the Ohio Department of Criminal Justice.
Those patrols’ emphasis will be on speeders and impaired drivers, the police department announced, and “will be working on random dates during this period and will be assigned to various locations around the city.”
National data compiled by Mothers Against Drunk Driving shows that of 160 fatal crashes last year on Thanksgiving Eve and Thanksgiving Day, 86 involved drivers with a 0.08 blood-alcohol content — the legal standard for impairment in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
The year before, 86 of 145 fatal traffic crashes involved legally intoxicated drivers. Both years’ totals were higher than New Year’s Eve, although that holiday involved only one night’s worth of activity instead of two.
The busiest single day for impairment-related fatalities last year, according to MADD’s data, was Halloween.
Contact David Patch at: dpatch@theblade.com or 419-724-6094.
First Published November 23, 2016, 5:00 a.m.
