Super Bowl Sunday road warning issued

Law enforcement officials are preparing for Super Bowl Sunday by reinforcing warnings about the dangers of impaired driving.

Multiple agencies Wednesday staged an event that featured a driving course at Owens Community College in which participants could try on blurred goggles that simulated impaired driving

Danielle Dressel donned the goggles that would give her the vision of someone with a blood-alcohol content of about 0.17 percent.

She cautiously navigated the course, and said it was challenging even at slow speeds.

“Every cone seemed like it was moving,” Ms. Dressel said.

Drinking at Super Bowl festivities causes an increase in impaired driving, Toledo police Chief George Kral said.

“The reason that we’re doing this today is this weekend is one of the highest OVI weekends of the year, with the Super Bowl and everybody out celebrating their team’s victory or drinking away the sorrow of their team losing,” the chief said.

The New England Patriots play the Seattle Seahawks in Arizona, starting at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

No fatal accidents occurred in January of 2013 or 2014 locally, but the area recorded an “alarming increase” with five fatal accidents so far this year, Ohio Highway Patrol Lt. Bill Bowers said.

Impaired driving is suspected in four of those five crashes, he said.

Toledo police and northwest Ohio highway patrol troopers last year made 1,757 arrests for operating a vehicle while intoxicated.

That’s up from 1,622 in 2013.

“While we see these increases in these impaired-driving crashes, as law enforcement, we’re working diligently to remove these impaired drivers from the roadway,” Lieutenant Bowers said.

He asked those who suspect impaired driving to call 911, and to stop friends and family from driving if they have consumed too much alcohol.

“We need citizens to step up and make the right decisions,” he said.

Contact Ryan Dunn at: rdunn@theblade.com, 419-724-6103, or on Twitter @RDunnBlade.