Safety
The Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act) mandates that states establish a performance and outcome-based program for transportation decision making. Targets for five safety performance measures are required annually: number of fatalities; number of serious injuries; fatality rate; serious injury rate; and number of non-motorized fatalities and serious injuries. OKI supports each individual state’s safety targets; and it plans and programs projects that contribute toward accomplishing each state’s targets.
Fatalities
Serious Injuries
Non-Motorized Fatalities and Serious Injuries
How is Safety defined?
Performance management is a critical element in roadway safety. It is measured by the number of lives lost and serious injuries sustained on the OKI region’s roadways. Safety performance targets will help improve data, foster transparency and accountability, and allow safety progress to be tracked at the regional, state and national levels. OKI uses the safety performance management framework to help identify transportation projects that will help improve road safety in the region.
How is the OKI region doing?
Baseline totals for the calendar years of 2015-2019 for number of fatalities, fatality rate, serious injuries, serious injury rate, and non-motorized fatalities and serious injuries were used to establish calendar year 2021 safety targets.
Number of Fatalities
Within the OKI region, more than 66,000 crashes occurred in 2019, killing 149 people and injuring more than 8,900. Available data shows that deaths have decreased 7.5 percent in the OKI region since 2015. Deaths during the 5-year period peaked in Hamilton County with 62 in 2016, while a low of five deaths occurred in Dearborn County in that same year.
TREND
Total Fatalities 2015-2019
Fatality Rate per 100 MVMT
Fatality rate is calculated as the number of deaths per 100-million vehicle miles traveled (MVMT). This metric provides a more accurate measure of the risk of being in a fatal accident based on the number of miles traveled. In the OKI region, Butler and Clermont counties in Ohio; Boone, Campbell and Kenton counties in Kentucky; and Dearborn County in Indiana, all had a fatality rate above 1.0 during at least one year, between 2015 and 2019. Over the five-year time period, the fatality rate for the OKI Region was 0.79, well below each state’s adopted statewide performance safety target.
TREND
Fatality Rate per 100 Million Vehicle Miles Traveled by OKI Region 2015-2019
Number of Serious Injuries
Serious injuries are those accidents where at least one individual has been incapacitated in a motor vehicle crash during a calendar year. Within the OKI region, only Warren County in Ohio and Dearborn County in Indiana saw an increase in serious injuries between 2015 and 2019. The OKI region as a whole experienced a 15.8 percent decline in serious injuries over the same time period.
TREND
Serious Injuries by County 2015-2019
Serious Injury Rate per 100 MVMT
Serious injuries are measured against 100 MVMT. In the OKI region, the serious-injury rate declined in every county except Warren and Dearborn between 2015 and 2019. In Campbell County, the serious injury rate declined by nearly 50 percent from a high of 5.87 in 2015. As a whole, the OKI region experienced a 3.5 percent decline in serious injuries over the five-year period.
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Serious Injuries by County 2015-2019
Number of Non-Motorized Fatalities and Serious Injuries
This metric includes all non-motorized (bicycle and pedestrian) fatalities and serious injuries involving a motor vehicle during a calendar year. Reported bicycle and pedestrian fatalities in the OKI region peaked with 32 in 2017. Bicycle deaths have been minimal and pedestrian deaths have totaled 28 or fewer in each year from 2015-2019.
Bicycle and pedestrian serious injuries increased from 2015-2018, declining in 2019. The majority of serious injuries have involved pedestrians.
TREND
Total Bike & Pedestrian Fatalities and Serious Injuries by County 2015-2019
