MANSFIELD, Ohio – The year 2015 saw the most traffic-related deaths in Richland County in more than a decade, leaving law enforcement and safety officials with a resolve to keep more drivers safe in the coming year.
There were 17 total traffic-related deaths in Richland County last year, making 2015 the second-deadliest year since 18 fatalities were reported in the year 2003. According to Lt. Matt Them of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, there were only 13 fatal crashes in 2015 but 17 deaths due to two drunk-driving crashes involving multiple fatalities.
Them stated the main factors in these crashes were driver inattention, unsafe speeds, impaired driving and people not wearing their seatbelt.
“You can look at all those crashes last year and they are all drilled down to those four things,” Them said.
According to Them, unsafe speed was the predominant factor in fatal crashes last year, with six crashes attributed to speed. Three crashes were the result of failure to yield, two were drivers drifting left of center, and one was a rear-end crash. Victims ranged in age from 16 years to 75 years old.
These numbers were brought to light during the quarterly fatal review meeting of the Richland County Safe Communities Coalition, a data-driven initiative to save lives and reduce injuries by building collaborations between state, county, and local community partners. The coalition was developed through the Ohio Department of Public Safety.
During these meetings, law enforcement agencies and community organizations experienced in traffic safety gather to review the crashes and see if there are any circumstances where they can offer an idea of how to prevent future crashes and fatalities. Reed Richmond, health educator for Richland Public Health and spokesperson for the Safe Communities Coalition, said the random nature of crashes is the essence of the problem.
“The things that we see don’t ever seem to be in one area – drinking and driving, not wearing your seatbelt, and excessive speeds seem to be a countywide problem,” Richmond said.
The coalition will look for opportunities to intervene with increased education, enforcement or engineering changes to try and mitigate the crashes, but Richmond noted quite often their findings are that these are already being enforced.
“Usually it’s the same education: don’t drink and drive, buckle up, don’t drive distracted, don’t speed, drive carefully in winter weather,” Richmond said. “The State Patrol is very good at identifying areas of concern and target certain areas with increased patrols.”
In 2015, 85 percent of fatal crashes happened in the northern part of the county, north of state Route 430. However, Lt. Them had no answer as to what caused this trend.
“There are so many different reasons that a crash occurs, we try to look for trends in why the crashes are happening but if there’s not a trend in the ‘why’ then we look at a certain area of the county,” Them said. “We focused our enforcement efforts up there, we had troopers that were assigned just to that northern region of the county every day to be up there and looking for crash cause violations in an effort to reverse that trend.”
And in some cases, there are elements out of anyone’s control. Richmond said in 2015 there were three pedestrian fatalities caused by cars sliding on black ice.
“None of those three people that were involved as the car driver ever expected something like that to happen, it was just a freaky thing,” Richmond said. “Those are what we term ‘accidents’ (instead of ‘crashes’), almost impossible to avoid and nobody expected that to happen.”
Fatal crashes take a financial toll on the county as well. According to a National Highway Traffic Administration (NHTSA) study of costs for traffic fatalities, each fatality has a comprehensive cost of $1.4 million associated with it. The 17 traffic fatalities last year cost Richland County $23.8 million.
According to a May 2014 NHTSA study of the comprehensive costs associated with traffic fatalities, up to $1.4 million dollars can be attributed to each traffic related death, not including lost quality of life. NHTSA calculates the dollar value by factoring productivity losses, property damage, medical and rehabilitation costs, congestion costs, legal and court costs, emergency services, insurance administration costs, and costs to employers.
Moving forward in 2016, the goal of the Safe Communities Coalition is to continue to spread their message of safety and awareness to Richland County drivers.
“Wear your seatbelt, don’t drive impaired, pay attention to what’s going on in the car and on the road, and keep your speeds down,” Them advised. “Those are the root cause of crashes, whether someone runs a stop sign or rear ends someone because they are distracted or impaired, and we try to communicate that with communities.”
Still, Richmond acknowledged education and enforcement can only do so much. In the end, the driving public has to be held responsible for their own safety.
“I’d hate to have any fatalities at all, but statistically it’s going to happen,” Richmond said. “People make mistakes.”
