The numbers are still unfortunately too high, however there is a positive trend along the streets and highways in Delaware County.
With one month until the end of 2019, the Ohio State Highway Patrol is reporting that the number of fatal crashes, year to date, is down slightly in the county as compared to the previous two years.
As of November 13, there had been 11 such crashes on county roads, as compared to 12 crashes in 2017 and 14 crashes in 2018. The total number of fatalities is down four from last year.
Two stretches of local highways have been the scene for almost half of those incidents — a stretch of US36/37 on either side of I71 between Galena Road and North Old State Road, and along US23 south of Delaware between US42 and Cheshire Road.
Three of this year’s fatal crashes have involved motorcycles, with no similar accidents reported in either of the previous two years.
Altogether there have been 4,126 instances of assisting motorists, 556 OVI cases, and 1,992 seat belt violations — the latter a sharp decrease from 2,665 in 2018.