Deadly crashes down in Ohio last year; Slightly up in Montgomery County

In the past five years, 2021 has the most deadly crashes.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office handled 1,142 crashes in 2022, 1,221 crashes in 2021, 1,062 crashes in 2020, 1,208 crashes in 2019, and 1,211 crashes in 2018, according to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office.

“The number of crashes for the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office was slightly lower for 2022 compared to 2021, although the number of serious injury and fatal crashes were slightly higher than in 2021,” the sheriff’s office said. “The Ohio Statistics and Analytics for Traffic Safety (OSTATS) show that Speed and Failure to yield right of way were the most frequent causative factors likely contributing to the increase in serious injury and fatality.”

The numbers for 2020 are lower due to COVID restrictions resulting in less traffic on area roadways, according to the sheriff’s office.

The Dayton Police Department said for 2021, they saw 19 fatal crashes, 1,360 injury crashes and 4,947 property damage crashes. Last year, they saw 26 fatal crashes, 1,235 injury crashes and 2,665 property damage crashes.

“We’ve seen the number of injury and property crashes decrease from 2021 to 2022 which is a positive sign. However it’s concerning anytime we see fatalities. The Dayton Police Department has a partnership with area jurisdictions including Ohio State Highway Patrol focusing efforts on reducing crashes and criminal activity on our roadways,” Sgt. Jon Sopczak, with the Dayton Police Department, said. “This is done through awareness, education and transparency to our communities during scheduled traffic safety details and events which focus on high crash and high complaint areas around Montgomery County. DPD continues to work to try and reduce excessive speed and reckless operations, as well as other unsafe driving behaviors.”

OSHP reported 62 fatal crashes in Montgomery County last year, just one more than the 61 recorded in 2021.

Other counties in the Miami Valley region had the following deadly crashes last year:

Montgomery County also had the most total crashes — 11,971 — reported in the region, according to OSHP. There were 261,977 total crashes reported in Ohio last year.

The remaining counties in the the Miami Valley reported following total crashes:

“The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office utilizes High Visibility Enforcement Overtime (HVEO) grant hours along with traffic enforcement hours from the Montgomery County Combined Agency OVI Task Force to conduct traffic enforcement throughout the county as well as roadways where statistics indicate a need for additional enforcement,” the sheriff’s office said.

Of the 11,971 crashes in Montgomery County last year, 498 were related to alcohol and 169 were related to drugs.

The most common variables were: