The number of Ohioans dying from car accidents has surged in the last decade. The state has seen a 26% increase in traffic fatalities in the ten years between 2013 and 2023.
Last year, more than 1,200 people in the state died due to traffic crashes, according to a new report from TRIP, a national transportation research nonprofit.
Rocky Moretti, the organization’s director of policy and research, said the surge in deaths is a national trend, with fatalities peaking during the COVID-19 pandemic. The deadliest year in Ohio was 2021.. Moretti said, that’s largely due to riskier behavior on the road.
“Motorists were taking more risks. They were driving faster. They were more likely to be impaired,” Moretti said.
In the last couple of years, the number of traffic deaths has gone down slightly. But Moretti said more work needs to be done to protect not only motorists, but the other travelers on the road. He said pedestrians and bicyclists made up around a fifth of Ohio’s traffic deaths.
The cost of traffic fatalities
The report estimates that traffic fatalities in Ohio cost the state more than $15.5 billion in medical care, court costs, property damage, emergency services and lost productivity due to congestion delays. But Moretti said those are just the concrete costs of car crashes.
When you factor in the emotional toll of losing a loved one, chronic pain or having a significant injury that changes your lifestyle, Moretti said the cost balloons.
“What we found in Ohio is that the total cost in 2023 of serious and fatal traffic crashes was approximately $63 billion,” he said. “A quarter of that was tangible economic loss. But the rest of it was the more significant loss in terms of quality of life to individuals.”
Potential solutions
The U.S. Department of Transportation has developed a strategy to improve safety on the roads. It recommends implementing education on risky driving behavior, increasing speeding enforcement and improving safety features in vehicles.
Plus, Moretti said Ohio can update road infrastructure to keep its motorists safe, like adding turn lanes on intersections, widening shoulders and improving sidewalks.
“This is a crisis, and this is going to take a variety of solutions that are really integrated together,” Moretti said.
Moretti also recommended adding in centerline rumble strips to prevent distracted drivers from drifting into traffic. These roadway departures makeup more than half of Ohio’s traffic fatalities each year, according to the governor’s office. In May, Gov. Mike DeWine announced more than $40 million in funding toward new traffic safety projects to prevent these kinds of crashes.
Moretti said Ohio should also pay special attention to preventing deaths in work zones. Ohio ranked 10th in the nation for fatalities in these construction areas, with more than 100 motorists and construction workers dying in work zones in the last year.
