Based on the decline in roadway deaths in Ohio the last three years – and it appears 2025 will be the fourth year – the state’s transportation safety plan is successfully evolving. And it has the coffee stains to prove it.
The late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is credited with saying: “Plan your work today and every day. Then work your plan.” However, author/keynote speaker Nathan Jamail takes Prime Minister Thatcher’s make-a-plan-work-the-plan strategy a step further, saying, “If your plan doesn’t have coffee stains on it, then it’s not doing you any good. Work it … Your plan should be a living guide that helps you as you improve it and allow it to grow.”
The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) is continuously “planning” and “working” its safety plan, and its success can be proven through the decreasing number of fatalities on Ohio’s road system.
The more than 14% reduction in the state’s road fatalities in recent years can be traced to ongoing efforts in making Ohio’s 250,000 centerline miles of roads and streets safer for motorists and “active” transportation travelers – such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.
“Last year, traffic deaths and serious injuries across Ohio declined for a third year in a row,” said Michelle May, who has served as the ODOT Highway Safety Program’s manager since 2006. Along with reporting the success the state is seeing in making travel safer – adding that Ohio’s pedestrian deaths have also declined 26% since 2021 – May, known at ODOT as “The First Lady of Safety,” said, “I’m excited to report that traffic deaths are declining (as of October) again this year. We’re on target for a fourth year of reductions across the state!”
ODOT Press Secretary Matt Bruning echoes May’s sentiments about Ohio’s decreased road deaths. “… We’re going in the right direction, and we want to see that momentum to continue, but on top of that we want to see that momentum pick up and go faster,” he said. “We don’t want to see any lives lost on our roadways, and while we are certainly encouraged by the numbers going down, we still have a long way to go.”
Ohio’s trajectory of serious road crashes and fatalities over the past 12 years has followed the ebbs and flows of the nation’s, as May said statistics have “mirrored what has happened nationally.” In the years following Ohio’s fewest road fatalities in nearly 80 years, when it recorded 917 deaths in 2013, the state saw fatalities increase more than 47% over the next eight years, including 8% in 2019, 6.4% in 2020 and 10.4% in 2021, before decreasing in recent years. (See related article on the nation’s roadways: “Report Touts Fewer Traffic Fatalities, but ‘We Still Have a Long Way to Go’,”)
While multiple reasons are given for Ohio’s safety success – from advocacy campaigns to improved technology and law enforcement – increased funding is pointed to as the major contributor.
“I think when you look at funding and where you invest your funds shows your priorities,” said Bruning. “The fact that Ohio has one of the largest safety improvement programs in the nation shows where our priorities are.”
May agrees, saying, “I would attribute the recent reductions in fatalities to a number of things … Under the DeWine Administration we have more than doubled our investment in safety improvements on Ohio roads; and we also got a lot savvier about how we invested that money.” She adds, “We are now starting to see the seeds of our efforts that were planted at the beginning of the administration starting to pay off.”
Funding for road safety improvements in Ohio has more than doubled from $86 million at the beginning of the DeWine Administration in 2019 to an estimated $186 million this year.
While safety, according to Bruning, has long been a mainstay for ODOT and state administrations, he said it’s at a different level today. The nearly 11-year ODOT press secretary said road safety is a mission close to the DeWine Family, as the governor’s daughter, Becky, was killed in a car accident in 1993. “When Gov. DeWine took office, it kind of went to the next level,” Bruning said. “From Day 1, he has been very laser focused in making sure we’re doing everything we can to make our roads as safe as possible across Ohio.”
Gov. DeWine’s initial task for state transportation leaders was tackling Ohio’s 150-most dangerous intersections on the rural, urban and suburban road systems.
A range of improvements were done at these intersections, according to Bruning, “from simple things like increased signage or restriping a location or adding a backplate to a traffic signal … all the way up to major intersection reconstructions to include roundabouts.”
From “the initial push” of the “Governor’s 150” and an increase in funding – including the federal transportation’s 2016-2020 Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) ACT and Ohio’s 2019 state gas tax – May said Ohio’s transportation safety program has evolved. “We rolled that into basically diversifying our safety program … that increase in safety funding now feeds a larger program that includes not only intersections but a whole variety of projects that make our roadway network more multimodal and safer.”
Asked about use of the U.S. DOT’s 28 Effective Safety Countermeasures (see page 15 for a listing of some of the top correctives and their documented benefits), May said, “There isn’t a single one that we aren’t implementing as part of our daily practices here at ODOT … You’ll see that reflected in the types, and the number of safety improvement projects that Ohio contractors have been seeing over the past number of years – and today, it supports about 300 to 400 small, medium and large safety projects across the state that are under development or under construction.”
Inquired about what safety countermeasures are having the biggest impact in Ohio, May listed roundabouts, better signage, improved pavement markings on the state’s higher-speed rural roads and high-visibility crosswalks.
Bruning, who has proven the ability to talk circles around you when it comes to roundabouts, said, “The roundabout, in my mind, is one of the things that always fulfills the promise made about them: They always reduce crashes, and more importantly reduce serious injury and fatal crashes – and the data shows that.” During September’s National Roundabout Week, ODOT reported that of the more than 75 Ohio intersections that have been converted to traffic circles, single-lane roundabouts have decreased injury crashes nearly 70% and multi-lane roundabouts by nearly 25%. Because of their ability in reducing vehicle speeds when maneuvering the circle and the number of conflict points experienced at traditional intersections that can lead to side impact and head-on crashes, look for the number of roundabouts in Ohio to increase. This past July, when Gov. DeWine announced an additional $137 million would be going toward 55 safety projects, 25 included construction of roundabouts.
Natasha Turner, who as Ohio’s STIP Coordinator/Manager helps develop, implement and update ODOT’s four-year planning program, has seen the growth of safety projects. “Safety has become more prominent among our constituents and leaders, making sure that it is becoming a focus all across the board,” said the more than 25-year ODOT veteran. “You can see that in the projects that have been programmed and put into the STIP (Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan), from more pedestrian crossings and sidewalks and even making sure that all users are considered and have a safe transportation option.”
Safety is again a key part of Ohio’s 2026-2029 STIP, which was approved by the U.S. DOT in July. The next four-year list of state-prioritized transportation projects is dotted with safety-focused interchange, intersection, lighting, pavement treatment, roads/median, roadway and traffic-control improvements. Among the 12 primary work groups in the 2026-2029 STIP, Safety ($1.5 billion) is only behind Preservation for the amount of planned investment.
Ohio & U.S. Road Deaths for 2013, 2019-2024
| Region | Year (with % change from prior year) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013/% | 2019/% | 2020/% | 2021/% | 2022/% | 2023/% | 2024/% | |
| Ohio | 917/-22% | 1,153/+8% | 1,230/+6% | 1,354/+10% | 1,275/-6% | 1,242/-3% | 1,160/-7% |
| U.S. | 32,719/-25% | 36,355/-2% | 38,824/+7% | 43,230/+8% | 42,514/-3% | 40,901/-4% | 39,345/-4% |
Coffee Stains
Proving Nathan Jamail’s strategy of developing and continually working a plan, Bruning (who admits drinking black coffee by the gallon), May (who starts her day with a black coffee before mixing in an afternoon espresso with oat milk) and Turner (who enjoys a caramel macchiato from time to time) agree that, like the STIP, ODOT’s safety program and projects are ever evolving.
“It’s constantly working that plan,” said Turner, “and asking: ‘Hey, how are we going to still be able to meet our goal?’ ‘How are we going to move these projects in and out of where they need to go and be able to make changes for the state of Ohio?’ … There’re lots of coffee stains.”
“Literally everything we do,” added Bruning, “from short-range planning to mid-range planning to long-range planning, is looking at ways that we can make the system work better – but more importantly make the system safer. When you make the system safer it is going to work better – those two things go hand in hand.”
State of the State
Motivated by family tragedy as well as the state’s growing number of more than 1,000 traffic fatalities each of the five previous years, Gov. DeWine demonstrated his steadfastness for a safer Ohio road system was demonstrated in his first State of the State Address given within months of taking office:
“Each one of you knows of a dangerous roadway or intersection in your district that needs to be fixed. In fact, ODOT has, at my request , identified 150 roads and highway locations that need to be fixed. Our proposal that we have sent to you would allow us to fix each one of these, and when all of those are fixed, we can then work on repairing all the rest of the dangerous places in our communities.”