Columbus, Ohio car accident guide and data hub

If you were just in a wreck on I-270 or you're waiting on a report after a fender bender on Morse Road, the next few steps matter more than you probably feel like dealing with right now. This page pulls together the local crash numbers for Columbus and Franklin County and the Ohio rules that decide what happens next, with every figure tied to a public source you can check yourself.

Franklin County is where most of central Ohio's traffic sits, and most of its crashes. State troopers and the Ohio Traffic Safety Office logged 94 fatal crashes in the county in 2025, down from 118 in 2023 but part of a three-year total of 295 fatal crashes.¹ Add the injuries and property damage, and the county recorded more than 25,000 reported crashes in that single year, roughly 70 percent of them property damage only.¹

The numbers behind central Ohio crashes

Across the wider region MORPC covers, about 100 people are killed and another 800 are seriously injured on the roads every year.² Franklin County carries most of that. In 2025 the county saw 517 serious-injury crashes and 4,082 minor-injury crashes on top of the 94 deadly ones.¹

The timing is as steady as the totals. Afternoons are the worst stretch of the day, accounting for 47 percent of Franklin County crashes, and Friday is the single busiest day for wrecks.¹ Seat-belt use runs a hair under the state as a whole, 87.5 percent in the county against 87.8 percent statewide.¹

Where crashes cluster

Three routes dominate the county's counts. Interstate 270, the Outerbelt, led with 1,738 crashes in 2025 and 4,544 over three years. US-40, the old National Road, and Interstate 70 round out the top three.¹

At street level, MORPC ranks the region's highest-crash intersections by crash count, injury severity, and how many vehicles pass through. The same east- and north-side corners keep landing near the top: Dublin-Granville Road (State Route 161) at Maple Canyon Drive, Broad Street (State Route 16) at James Road, East Livingston Avenue at Hamilton Road, and Morse Road at Karl Road.³ The concentration is striking. MORPC has found that 62 percent of crashes happen on just 10 corridors, most of them wide, high-volume arterials like Morse Road and Cleveland Avenue.³

Columbus built its Vision Zero program around those corridors, launching it in 2020 with a goal of eliminating traffic deaths and serious injuries.⁴ The point is to put safety money where people actually get hurt. When the program started, about 65 percent of fatal and serious-injury crashes were happening on 10 percent of the city's streets; more recently that has shifted to 52 percent on 7 percent.⁴ Even so, Columbus counted 48 traffic deaths in 2025.⁴

One of the clearest changes landed downtown. In spring 2023 the city dropped the limit from 35 to 25 mph on 11 downtown streets, put up more than 100 new signs, and retimed 134 traffic signals to match.⁵ Over the next eleven months, fatal and serious-injury crashes in that zone fell from 19 to 9, and total crashes dropped from 479 to 407.⁵

What's driving the crashes

Young drivers show up more than any other group. People aged 15 to 24 were involved in 7,284 Franklin County crashes in 2025, the largest single category the state tracks.¹ Failure to yield the right of way was a factor in 4,084 crashes, speed in 2,340, running a red light or stop sign in 1,428, and impaired driving in 1,200.¹

Statewide, the thing that turns a crash deadly is often leaving the road. Ohio troopers report that 26 percent of the state's fatal crashes over the past five years involved a vehicle running off the roadway, and for teen drivers it is the second most common factor behind speeding.¹

Distraction gets its own line, tied to 654 Franklin County crashes last year.¹ Since April 2023, Ohio has treated a phone in your hand as a primary offense. Under Revised Code 4511.204, "no person shall operate a motor vehicle ... while using, holding, or physically supporting with any part of the person's body an electronic wireless communications device," and an officer can stop you for that alone.⁶

What to do after a crash in Columbus

Call 911 so an officer responds and writes a report. On city streets that is usually the Columbus Division of Police; on the freeways it is the State Highway Patrol. Trade insurance and plate information with the other driver and photograph the scene and the damage. Get names and numbers for any witnesses before they leave, say as little as possible about fault, and see a doctor even if you feel fine, because neck and back injuries often surface a day or two later.

Ohio's report system is one of the easier ones in the country to use. Once the investigating agency uploads your report, you can pull it for free from the Ohio Crash Retrieval System, which can take a few weeks.⁷ Columbus also handles accident-report requests through the Division of Police.⁸ Keep a copy, because it is the first document every insurer and adjuster will ask for.

Deadlines, fault, and insurance in Ohio

The deadline is the part people miss. Ohio gives you two years from the date of the crash to file a lawsuit for bodily injury or damaged property, under Revised Code 2305.10.⁹ Miss it and the case is almost always gone, however strong it was.

Fault is split by percentage. Under Revised Code 2315.33, you can still recover when you were partly to blame, but your damages are cut by your share of the fault, and you are barred entirely once your fault is greater than everyone else's combined.¹⁰ That is why the police report and the details you collect at the scene carry so much weight.

Coverage is the other ceiling. Ohio's required minimum is only $25,000 for one person's injuries, $50,000 per crash, and $25,000 for property damage, set by Revised Code 4509.51.¹¹ Serious injuries blow past those figures quickly, which is why your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage matters so much.

You can follow the county and statewide numbers yourself through the Ohio Traffic Safety Office's OSTATS crash dashboard, updated as agencies file their reports.¹² If your injuries are serious or fault is being disputed, you can compare attorneys through the thatcarhitme.com legal directory.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Ohio State Highway Patrol and Ohio Traffic Safety Office, "Fast Facts: 2025 Franklin County Traffic Crashes." https://dam.assets.ohio.gov/image/upload/otso.ohio.gov/DataSheets/Franklin.pdf

2. Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, "Transportation Safety." https://www.morpc.org/programs-services/transportation-safety/

3. WOSU Public Media, "Here Are Central Ohio's Most Dangerous Intersections" (MORPC high-crash ranking). https://www.wosu.org/news/2018-09-07/here-are-central-ohios-most-dangerous-intersections

4. WOSU Public Media, "Is enough being done to prevent serious traffic crashes in central Ohio?" https://www.wosu.org/show/all-sides/2026-05-28/is-enough-being-done-to-prevent-serious-traffic-crashes-in-central-ohio

5. Greater Ohio Policy Center, "Columbus Lowers Speed Limits in Downtown Center." https://www.greaterohio.org/good-ideas/2025/2/7/columbus-lowers-speed-limits-in-downtown-center

6. Ohio Revised Code Section 4511.204, "Driving while texting." https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-4511.204

7. Ohio Department of Public Safety, Ohio Crash Retrieval System. https://ohtrafficdata.dps.ohio.gov/crashretrieval

8. City of Columbus, "Find an Accident Report." https://www.columbus.gov/Services/Public-Safety/Find-a-Police-Report/Find-an-Accident-Report

9. Ohio Revised Code Section 2305.10. https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-2305.10

10. Ohio Revised Code Section 2315.33, "Contributory fault effect on right to recover." https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-2315.33

11. Ohio Revised Code Section 4509.51. https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-4509.51

12. Ohio Traffic Safety Office, OSTATS Crash Dashboard. https://statepatrol.ohio.gov/dashboards-statistics/ostats-dashboards/crash-dashboard