As the Fourth of July holiday weekend begins, Ohio plans to sink hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into traffic safety.
Gov. Mike DeWine announced Thursday a plan to spend $137.5 million on roadway safety projects around the state, including 55 projects in 41 of Ohioâs 88 counties.
âEnsuring the safety of Ohio’s roadways is always one of our top priorities,â DeWine said. âWhether youâre driving or walking, we want every Ohioan to get where theyâre going safely.â
Twenty-two of the projects are aimed directly at pedestrian safety by building sidewalks, shared use paths or improvements to crosswalks. DeWine said 125 people were killed in pedestrian-vehicle incidents last year. Fifty people have been killed so far this year.
Five of the projects are expected to target roadway departure crashes by widening shoulders and realigning curves.
Nearly half of all traffic deaths in the state come from roadway departures.
âThese targeted, data-driven investments not only improve safety for local communities but strengthen the transportation system across Ohio,â Ohio Department of Transportation Director Pamela Boratyn said. âWith the largest highway safety program per capita in the nation, weâre seeing real resultsâtraffic deaths have been declining since 2021.â
The roadway investments come a day after the state announced a new marketing campaign to get more passengers to use seatbelts.
The âHard Hitterâ seatbelt campaign uses football imagery to show the impact of an unbuckled vehicle passenger on another passenger during a crash. At speeds of 50 miles per hour, a crash has the potential to hurl a passenger with eight times the force of a 240-pound linebacker running at full speed, DeWine said.
âWearing your seatbelt every time you get in a car saves lives,â Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel said. âWe hope this campaign helps Ohioans realize that buckling up is serious. As someone who has spent a career watching how hard linebackers can hit, being unbuckled in a crash is worse.â
