Northeast Ohio's Cleveland-Akron-Canton media market spans three counties that each publish their own crash numbers every year: Cuyahoga, Summit, and Stark. Ohio logged 264,954 crashes statewide in 2025, including 26,533 in December alone1. That number says nothing about which on-ramp, which curve, or which four-way stop is doing the damage, though. The counties, along with two regional planning agencies, name those roads specifically.
Cuyahoga County's I-90 and Dead Man's Curve
Cuyahoga County recorded 24,156 crashes in 2025, including 75 deaths. Interstate 90 accounts for more of them than any other route in the county: 3,872 crashes between 2023 and 2025, ahead of I-480 (2,901) and I-71 (1,689), according to the Ohio Traffic Safety Office's county crash sheet2.
One stretch of I-90 has carried a nickname for six decades. Where the Cleveland Memorial Shoreway meets the Innerbelt Freeway just south of Burke Lakefront Airport, drivers hit a nearly 90-degree turn that forces a drop from 55 mph to about 35. Locals call it Dead Man's Curve, and it still ranks 16th among Ohio's highway locations most in need of safety work, the same rank it held in 20193. ODOT's Cleveland Innerbelt Modernization Plan would ease the curve between Superior Avenue and East 49th Street to a 60 mph design speed. Preliminary design didn't start until fall 2024, and there's still no construction date3.
Away from the freeway, the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency's SAVE plan has flagged ten arterial corridors across the region for the worst crash concentrations, part of a push to cut serious injuries and deaths in half by 20404. Four of the ten sit inside Cleveland. St. Clair Avenue between East 93rd and East 115th streets logged 168 crashes, 12 of them fatal or serious, and the next block of St. Clair, from East 115th to Casper Road, added 161 more crashes and 12 more serious outcomes4. West 117th Street between Lorain Avenue and Berea Road and West 25th Street between Clark and Lorain avenues each top 150 crashes as well4. Outside the city, Mentor Avenue (U.S. 20) between Hopkins and Old Johnnycake Ridge roads led the whole list at 229 crashes4. NOACA's executive director, Grace Gallucci, put it plainly: "The majority of what we find is driver actions that caused the crashes4."
Summit County's I-77 corridor and Akron's worst intersection
In Summit County, Interstate 77 leads with 2,726 crashes from 2023 through 2025, followed by State Route 8 (2,028) and State Route 18 (1,714)5. The county logged 31 traffic deaths in 20255.
The Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study's 2022-2024 crash report combed through 46,576 crash records and flagged 217 high-crash intersections and 128 high-crash roadway sections across Summit, Portage, and northeastern Wayne counties6. The single worst intersection is Rhodes Avenue and West Thornton Street in Akron: 26 crashes in three years, with almost 58 percent resulting in injury6. On the roadway side, North Main Street (State Route 261) between Olive Street and East Tallmadge Avenue ranks third regionally, with 14.58 crashes per mile every year. Copley Road (State Route 162) shows up twice in the top ten, once between East Avenue and South Portage Path and again between Storer Avenue and East Avenue6.
Freeways get analyzed separately, by ODOT rather than AMATS. On ODOT's 2025 Highway Safety Improvement Program priority list, Interstate 77 northbound just south of Akron's Central Interchange ranks 52nd among urban freeway segments statewide, and Interstate 76 eastbound between East Avenue and State Route 59 ranks 63rd6.
Stark County's US-62 and the intersections ODOT is already fixing
Stark County's top route by crash count is U.S. 62, with 1,471 crashes from 2023 to 2025, just ahead of I-77 (1,420) and State Route 172 (1,414)7. The county saw 31 fatal crashes in 20257.
The Stark County Area Transportation Study reviews crash data at more than 900 intersections every year, and its latest ranking, covering 2022 through 2024, puts State Route 173 and Paris Avenue NE in rural Marlboro Township at the top: 22 crashes, most caused by drivers failing to yield, at an intersection carrying only about 5,540 vehicles a day8. ODOT has already funded a roundabout there, though construction isn't expected until 2028 or 20298. Inside Canton, Walnut Avenue and 15th Street Northeast has a subtler problem. City traffic engineer Nick Loukas said, "We think there might be some issues with the visibility of the stop sign," and the fix under discussion is a flashing beacon and trimmed vegetation rather than a full rebuild8. Dressler Road and Everhard Road, a six-lane signalized intersection in a busy shopping corridor, saw 20 crashes in 2024 alone; ODOT widened the lanes there that same summer8.
What's actually causing the crashes
The same few factors show up across all three counties' crash data. Failure-to-yield crashes numbered 11,762 in Cuyahoga County, 5,068 in Summit, and 4,310 in Stark over the three-year period, more common than almost any other cause except age257. Drivers age 15 to 24 were involved in more than 20,000 Cuyahoga County crashes in that span, and youth-related crashes are the single largest category in every county in this market257. Speed is close behind. Cuyahoga alone logged 8,240 speed-related crashes over three years, and statewide, running off the road causes roughly a quarter of Ohio's fatal crashes2.
If you've been hurt in a crash on any of these roads, the intersection's own crash history can matter almost as much as the collision report when it comes to proving how the road contributed. An attorney who already knows a corridor, whether it's Dead Man's Curve's decades of truck rollovers or Rhodes Avenue's repeat-crash ranking, can put that history to use. You can find one through the legal directory.
This is general information, not legal advice.
Sources
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thatcarhitme.com, Ohio (Statewide) Crash Report, 2025 Annual, https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/ohio/statewide/2025-annual-report
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Ohio Traffic Safety Office, Cuyahoga County Traffic Crashes Fast Facts (April 2026), https://dam.assets.ohio.gov/image/upload/otso.ohio.gov/DataSheets/Cuyahoga.pdf
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Cleveland 19 News, "A step closer to changes for Dead Man's Curve in Cleveland," https://www.cleveland19.com/2024/08/26/step-closer-changes-dead-mans-curve/
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News 5 Cleveland, "Agency identifies Northeast Ohio's 10 most dangerous traffic corridors but finds driver actions cause most crashes," https://www.news5cleveland.com/traffic/traffic-news/agency-identifies-northeast-ohios-10-most-dangerous-traffic-corridors-but-finds-driver-actions-cause-most-crashes
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Ohio Traffic Safety Office, Summit County Traffic Crashes Fast Facts (April 2026), https://dam.assets.ohio.gov/image/upload/otso.ohio.gov/DataSheets/Summit.pdf
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Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study, 2022-2024 Annual Crash Report, https://www.amatsplanning.org/sites/default/files/docs/reports/DRAFT%202022-2024%20Annual%20Crash%20Report.pdf
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Ohio Traffic Safety Office, Stark County Traffic Crashes Fast Facts (April 2026), https://dam.assets.ohio.gov/image/upload/otso.ohio.gov/DataSheets/Stark.pdf
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News 5 Cleveland, "Stark County's most dangerous intersections ranked," https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/stark-countys-most-dangerous-intersections-ranked