Cincinnati crash statistics and trends

Cincinnati logged 14,086 traffic crashes in 2025 and Hamilton County logged 28,911, with Colerain Avenue, the Western Hills Viaduct, and I-75 among the biggest risk factors. Here is what the state, county, and city crash data actually show, and what two multibillion-dollar bridge projects mean for drivers over the next decade.

ThatCarHitMe.com Editorial
Jul 16, 2026
5 min read

Cincinnati logged 14,086 traffic crashes in 2025, down slightly from 14,180 the year before, which works out to almost 39 crashes a day inside city limits.1 Widen the view to all of Hamilton County and the total climbs to 28,911 crashes, 53 of them fatal, killing 54 people.2 These aren't abstract figures. They come from named roads: Colerain Avenue, the Western Hills Viaduct, the I-71/I-75 interchange downtown, and a 4 p.m. rush hour that is consistently the worst hour of the week to be driving here.1

The numbers behind the crashes

Cincinnati's 2025 crash report shows 4,090 people injured and 21 killed in crashes inside city limits, and pedestrians absorb a disproportionate share of that damage: 262 pedestrian crashes killed 5 people and injured 247 more.1 Countywide, the picture is worse. Hamilton County recorded 408 pedestrian crashes in 2025, 13 of them fatal, along with 93 bicycle crashes and 225 motorcycle crashes.2 Ohio State Highway Patrol's own fatal-crash breakdown for the county shows 47 of the 53 fatal crashes happened in urban areas rather than rural stretches, and 35, about two in three, were OVI-related.3

Hit-and-run crashes make up a striking share of the total. Cincinnati police logged 4,082 hit-and-run crashes in 2025, a 29% hit-and-run rate, meaning almost 3 in 10 crashes end with someone leaving the scene.1 Friday is the worst day of the week to be on Cincinnati roads (2,265 crashes in 2025) and 4 p.m. is the worst hour (1,183 crashes), a pattern that held in both 2024 and 2025.1

Where crashes cluster

Ohio's own crash-frequency data points to specific roads. Colerain Avenue, which runs northwest out of Cincinnati into Hamilton County, shows up five separate times among the region's most dangerous intersections in ODOT data for District 8, which covers Hamilton, Butler, Clermont, and several neighboring counties.4 In September 2025, a rollover on westbound Ronald Reagan Highway near Blue Rock Road and I-275 in Colerain Township killed one person and sent another to UC Medical Center.5 On the west side, a pedestrian was struck in a marked crosswalk on Glenway Avenue at Overlook Avenue in West Price Hill in March 2025, critically injuring a 58-year-old and shutting the road down for hours while Cincinnati police investigated.6

The interstates carry their own share. State Highway Patrol data shows I-75 logged 2,120 crashes in Hamilton County in 2025, more than any other route, followed by I-71 (1,473) and I-275 (1,182).3 Two crashes documented in that same report from early 2026: a driver lost control turning from Whitfield Avenue onto Howell Avenue on Cincinnati's west side and hit a parked car, a tree, and a light pole, and a chain-reaction crash near milepost 33 on I-275 started when a driver going 70 mph in wet conditions rear-ended a stopped SUV.3

Pedestrians and cyclists carry outsized risk

A 2026 crash study from the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments (OKI), which plans for Hamilton County along with seven surrounding counties in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, found that pedestrians and cyclists make up less than 2% of all regional crashes but roughly 12% of fatal and serious-injury crashes.7 Between 2015 and 2024, the region logged 6,117 pedestrian crashes (259 deaths) and 1,727 bicycle crashes (29 deaths).7 The study's speed math is blunt: a pedestrian hit at 25 mph has roughly a 1-in-5 chance of a fatal or serious injury; at 35 mph, the risk jumps to 1 in 2. Arterial roads, the wide, high-speed Colerain Avenue and Glenway Avenue type of corridor, make up only about 10% of regional roadway miles but account for roughly half of all fatal and serious crashes involving pedestrians or cyclists.7

Cincinnati adopted a Vision Zero safety strategy in 2019, and the city's annual spending on pedestrian-focused engineering has grown from around $500,000 a year to about $7 million.8 A two-year traffic-calming project in College Hill cut crashes there by 30 to 40%, one of the program's more visible wins.8 The city's Vision Zero effort, run out of the Department of Transportation and Engineering, tracks a High Injury Network of corridors where crash severity clusters and uses it to decide where the next round of bump-outs and speed cushions gets built.9

Two megaprojects reshaping the map

Two large infrastructure projects will reshape crash risk on Cincinnati's west side for years to come. The Western Hills Viaduct, which carries more than 55,000 vehicles a day over the Mill Creek Valley and an active rail yard, is rated 4 out of 9 on the federal bridge-condition scale, officially "poor."10 The city and Hamilton County are co-leading a replacement, with the Ohio Department of Transportation handling the I-75 portion; construction preparation starts in 2026 ahead of a targeted completion in December 2031.10

Just south of there, the Brent Spence Bridge Corridor project broke ground in May 2026: a $4.05 billion effort, including $1.6 billion in federal grants, to build a new companion bridge next to the 1963-era Brent Spence Bridge.11 The corridor runs about eight miles, from the Western Hills Viaduct in Ohio to Dixie Highway in Kentucky, and once the new span opens in 2031, the original bridge will be restriped from four lanes to three per direction and handed over to local traffic only.11 Until then, expect ramp closures and shifting detours through downtown and Covington to add their own crash risk to that corridor.

What actually causes these crashes

Cincinnati's own crash data names "following too closely" (3,046 crashes) as the single largest contributing factor in 2025, ahead of "other improper action" (2,984), improper lane changes (1,696), and failure to yield (1,503).1 Angle crashes and rear-end collisions are the two most common collision types, together accounting for roughly half of all crashes in the city.1 Speeding was flagged in 736 city crashes and 1,884 countywide, while DUI-related crashes numbered 357 in the city and 685 across Hamilton County.12

After a crash

If you're hurt in a crash on Colerain Avenue, Glenway Avenue, I-75, or anywhere else in Greater Cincinnati, the crash report and the agency that responded, whether that's Cincinnati Police, Colerain Township Police, or the Ohio State Highway Patrol, matters for any claim you file. An attorney from our legal directory can walk you through what your specific crash report means for your case.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

  1. ThatCarHitMe.com, "Cincinnati, OH Crash Report — 2025." https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/ohio/cincinnati/2025-annual-report

  2. ThatCarHitMe.com, "Hamilton County, OH Crash Report — 2025." https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/ohio/hamilton-county/2025-annual-report

  3. Ohio Traffic Safety Office / Ohio State Highway Patrol, "Fast Facts: 2025 Hamilton County Traffic Crashes" (April 2026). https://dam.assets.ohio.gov/image/upload/otso.ohio.gov/DataSheets/Hamilton.pdf

  4. Local 12 (WKRC), "These are Southwest Ohio's most dangerous intersections." https://local12.com/news/local/these-are-southwest-ohios-most-dangerous-intersections-colerain-avenue-department-transportation-cincinnati-business-courier

  5. FOX19 (WXIX), "1 dead, another injured in Colerain Township crash, police say" (September 13, 2025). https://www.fox19.com/2025/09/13/1-dead-another-injured-colerain-township-crash-police-say/

  6. FOX19 (WXIX), "Pedestrian struck in West Price Hill, Glenway Avenue closed" (March 18, 2025). https://www.fox19.com/2025/03/18/pedestrian-struck-west-price-hill-glenway-avenue-closed/

  7. Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments (OKI), "OKI Crash Study: Pedestrians, Cyclists at Highest Risk, Speed and Road Design Lead to Severe Consequences." https://www.oki.org/oki-crash-study-pedestrians-cyclists-at-highest-risk-speed-and-road-design-lead-to-severe-consequences/

  8. WCPO 9 (Scripps), "Cincinnati has made meaningful progress on pedestrian safety, but still working toward 'Vision Zero.'" https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/finding-solutions/cincinnati-has-made-meaningful-progress-on-pedestrian-safety-but-still-working-toward-vision-zero

  9. City of Cincinnati, Vision Zero program. https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/visionzero/

  10. City of Cincinnati Department of Transportation and Engineering, "Western Hills Viaduct" project page. https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/dote/dote-projects/western-hills-viaduct/

  11. Construction Review Online, "$4.05 Billion Brent Spence Bridge Corridor Project Gets Underway." https://constructionreviewonline.com/4-05-billion-brent-spence-bridge-corridor-project-gets-underway/

About This Guide

Written by: ThatCarHitMe.com Editorial

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