Safety
The Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act mandates States establish a performance and outcome-based program for transportation decision making. Targets for five performance measures are required annually: number of fatalities, number of serious injuries, rate of fatalities, rate of serious injuries and number of non-motorized fatalities and serious injuries. OKI supports each individual state’s Safety Performance Measure Targets and plan and program projects so that they contribute toward accomplishment of each state’s safety performance measure goals.
Fatalities
Serious Injuries
Non-Motorized Fatalities and Serious Injuries
How is Safety defined?
Performance management is a critical element in roadway safety and is measured by the number of lives lost and serious injuries sustained on the OKI region’s roadways. The 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 progress the region toward improving road safety.
How is the OKI region doing?
Baseline totals for the calendar years of 2017-2021 for number of fatalities, rate of fatalities, serious injuries, rate of serious injuries, and number of non-motorized fatalities and serious injuries were used to establish calendar year 2023 safety performance targets.
Number of Fatalities
Within the OKI region, an average of 66,000 crashes occurred each year between 2017 and 2021, ending, on average, 160 lives, and causing more than 10,500 injuries. Available data indicates that fatalities have decreased 9.4 percent in the OKI region since 2017. Fatalities during the 5-year time period peaked in Hamilton County in 2021 with 72, while a low of one fatality occurred in Campbell County in 2021.
TREND
Total Fatalities 2017-2021
Fatality Rate per 100 MVMT
The rate of fatalities is calculated as the number of fatalities 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 2017 and 2021. Over the five-year time period, the average rate of fatalities for the OKI Region was 0.84, well below each state’s adopted statewide performance safety target.
TREND
Fatality Rate per 100 Million Vehicle Miles Traveled by OKI Region 2017-2021
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 Boone County in Kentucky and Dearborn County in Indiana saw an increase in serious injuries between 2017 and 2021. The OKI region as a whole experienced a 13.2 percent decline in the number of serious injuries over the same time period.
TREND
Serious Injuries by County 2017-2021
Serious Injury Rate per 100 MVMT
Serious injuries are measured against 100 MVMT. In the OKI region, the rate of serious injuries declined in every county except Boone County in Kentucky and Dearborn County in Indiana, between 2017 and 2021. In Clermont County, the rate of serious injuries declined by 33 percent from a high of 9.43 in 2017. As a whole, the OKI region experienced a decline of 7.3 percent in the rate of serious injuries over the five-year time period.
TREND
Serious Injuries by County 2017-2021
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 in 2021 with 36. Bicycle deaths have been minimal and pedestrian fatalities have totaled 31 or less in each year from 2017-2021.
Bicycle and pedestrian serious injuries peaked in 2018 with 172, before dropping sharply to 121, in 2019. By 2021, bicycle and pedestrian serious injuries had fallen to 113. The majority of serious injuries have involved pedestrians.
TREND
Total Bike & Pedestrian Fatalities and Serious Injuries by County 2017-2021
