By: Steve Magas
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The problem with the ODPS reports that I am looking is that you have to accept the officer’s street level, on-the-spot conclusion as to “fault” without argument or analysis. The only way to independently determine if the officer was “right” in blaming one side or the other is to get the actual report and review it with an accident reconstructionist’s eye. In MANY crash reports, there is simply not enough information written down by the officer to permit this even if you had the time and inclination to do so!
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Montgomery County [Ohio] had 83 car/bike crashes listed in the report – 14 to a page and almost six full pages worth. As I started reviewing each line of data I noticed that the vast majority of the crashes on each page were blamed on the CYCLIST. At the end, it appeared that police in Montgomery County blamed the cyclists in 59 of the 83 crashes – a whopping 71%. Motorists were only blamed for causing 18% of the crashes [15 of 83] while 9 were said to be “undetermined.”
71% vs. 18% – that’s a HUGE difference from the almost 50/50 split I saw in Franklin County. Are Dayton cyclists that much worse at obeying the law, and that much better at causing crashes, than their brethren in Columbus? Didn’t make sense.
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https://ohiobikelawyer.com/uncategorized/2011/05/2011-study-of-all-ohio-fatal-bike-crashes/oldId.20110504072036270