YOUNGSTOWN — Lt. Eric Brown, commander of the Canfield post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, called the drop in traffic fatalities in Mahoning County over the past year “unprecedented.”

The county had about 10 fatal traffic crashes in 2023 compared to about 34 in 2022, according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s OSTATS website and Lt. Brown, who reports the Canfield post investigated 10 fatal crashes in 2023 and 29 in 2022.

“To end the year with 10, that’s unprecedented. I’ve been here my whole career, and I have not seen a number like that. That’s good news,” said Brown, who has worked at the Canfield post for 26 years, one year as commander.

Brown said he has “no idea” what accounts for the drop, but noted that Youngstown saw a significant drop in fatal crashes. Other factors might include Ohio enacting a new texting and driving law that went into effect April 4, “luck and the enforcement blitzes we ran this year,” he said.

“We worked great with our Mahoning County law enforcement partners,” he added.

TRAFFIC BLITZES

The traffic blitzes were new in 2023. They began in March after Brown’s superiors at the state patrol asked him what could be done to bring down the number of traffic fatalities.

He asked the troopers at the Canfield Post for their input, and a young trooper suggested making signs and carrying out enforcement “blitzes” with high visibility.

Brown partnered with the Ohio Department of Transportation in Canfield, which made three brightly colored portable signs saying “Targeted enforcement” in large letters to place along the road. The blitzes were carried out in the areas that experience the most crashes.

Brown said last week he told the troopers at the Canfield post “This is not about writing a bunch of speeding tickets or traffic tickets. Let’s stop cars and be visible.”

He said he knew the blitzes were working when people started to share Facebook posts with him. One message in a Facebook group labeled “Boardman Talk” read: “Hey, Ohio State Highway Patrol is out on (Route) 224 in front of the Blue Wolf (tavern/restaurant), they’re everywhere.'”

“That’s what we are trying to accomplish,” Brown said. “It’s the visibility of it.”

Brown said he can only hope that the trend of fewer fatalities continues this year.

“Hopefully in 2024 we are going to continue the same blitzes and same track and hopefully we finish out 2024 the same or better than we did this past year. All we can do is try, and I know the guys here work hard.”

A Dec. 29 Ohio counties map of the traffic fatalities produced by the Statistical Analysis Unit of the highway patrol showed that Mahoning County’s drop of 27 fatalities last year was by far the largest drop in the state.

The next largest drop was in Greene County near Dayton, where fatalities dropped by 13.

YOUNGSTOWN

The Youngstown Police Department says its number of fatal traffic accidents in 2023 is four or five, depending on the outcome of uncompleted investigations. It reports there were 13 fatal crashes in the city in 2022.

The Vindicator discovered that coming to an agreement on how many total fatal crashes occurred in Mahoning County in 2022 is challenging because the OSTATS numbers do not agree with the numbers provided by state patrol’s Canfield post and the Youngstown Police Department.

In 2022, the Canfield post says it had 29 fatal crashes, and Youngstown reports it had 13, but that equals 42, not 34, as reported by OSTATS, which the Highway Patrol says includes fatal crashes investigated by all agencies in the county.

Lt. Robert Gentile, head of the Youngstown Police Department Traffic and Accident Investigation Unit, said he attributes the dramatically lower number of fatal crashes in Youngstown this past year to traffic enforcement. That included the work of the police department’s Neighborhood Response Unit, extra patrols by Youngstown officers, the school speed camera program that started in 2023 and the signage and radar-feedback signs that were installed as part of the school speed camera program.

The city began its unmanned speed cameras in school zones starting Feb. 21 and had them in use at 19 schools. It lasted three months. The plan was to turn the cameras back on when the Youngstown city school district teachers strike ended. But, when a contract was signed and classes resumed Sept. 18, the cameras remained off.

A dispute regarding how — or if — Youngstown Municipal Court will hold hearings on contested speed citations in school zones remains unresolved, so the cameras remain off. However, at least some of the radar-feedback signs telling motorists how fast they are traveling remain on. During the three months of enforcement, 22,424 speeding citations were issued. Of those, about 300 citations are being contested. Cameras were in use on school days from the time kids headed to class until 6 p.m.

Gentile said other issues that he thinks contributed to the lower traffic fatality numbers are the new texting while driving law, seat-belt use, OVI saturation checkpoints and other programs Youngstown police Chief Carl Davis instituted.

“We hope to get these numbers even lower this year and ideally would like to see zero fatal crashes,” Gentile said.

STATEWIDE

Bridget Matt, public information officer for the Ohio State Highway Patrol, said OSP statistics show there were 1,250 people killed in 1,159 fatal crashes in Ohio in 2023, though those numbers are considered tentative until 30 days after the date of the last fatal crash of the year.

By comparison, there were 1,275 people killed in 1,180 fatal crashes in Ohio in 2022. Those numbers are considered complete.

That means the number of the people who died in fatal crashes in Ohio dropped by 25 in 2023 compared to 2022, and the number of fatal crashes in Ohio dropped by 21 during that same time period.

TEXTING LAW

Brown said there was evidence shortly after the texting and driving law went into effect April 4 that the new law was having an impact on drivers.

He said the company Cambridge Telematics reported in May that there was nearly a 10% reduction in distracted driving.

The way they arrived at that conclusion was by combing through data they acquired from drivers who allowed their phone to be equipped with software that tracked their driving and phone usage at the same time. Such drivers are offered discounts for participating, Brown said.

“It tracks your driving — braking, acceleration. They know when you are utilizing your phone and driving,” Brown said. “So if it shows your phone is going 65, 75 miles per hour and you are texting, then there is a good assumption you are texting and driving.”

It will probably take more years to confirm the safety improvements resulting from the texting and driving law, he said. “Give it another two years, three years, we will be able to look back and say yes definitely it had an impact on bringing down traffic crashes and distracted driving violations.”

Brown provided statistics showing that troopers at the Canfield post issued 133 citations for texting and driving from Oct. 5, 2023, when the warning phase of the law ended, to Dec. 31, 2023. He agreed that a large number of citations for texting and driving can be interpreted in multiple ways. It can indicate there is a texting problem or it can indicate that law enforcement is trying hard to address it.

He said it is similar to how someone might interpret high numbers of drunk driving offenses in area with a lot of traffic.

In such areas, “it might look like it has an OVI problem, but if you step back and look at it, Austintown and Boardman are the two largest townships in the county, so naturally that is where the largest call volume is. That’s where troopers are primarily going to work. So, is there a problem there? It’s just because of the volume of traffic.

“The same goes with the distracted driving law. You have to have buy in from the officers, and I know here at the Canfield post we do. These guys are out there actively, aggressively looking for those violations because they know it makes a difference.

“We know when people are driving distracted, it could be just as deadly or dangerous as driving impaired. It’s an important violation to enforce, and these guys are on top of it.”

In 2023, Mahoning County had 160 distracted driving crashes in which there was property damage only, 40 such crashes had a suspected minor injury, 25 that had a possible injury and two such crashes that had a suspected serious injury, according to Ohio State Highway Patrol statistics.

In Trumbull County in 2023, there were 95 distracted-driving crashes with property damage only, 38 such crashes with a suspected minor injury, 17 such crashes with a possible injury and six such crashes with a suspected serious injury.

There were no fatal accidents in either county in 2023 attributed to distracted driving.

erunyan@vindy.com