By Paula Scott

When a Bluffton Icon reader was troubled by accidents at the intersection of State Route103/Jefferson Ave. and County Line Rd., the Icon proceeded to do some digging. The results are data on crash density in Bluffton from 2018-2023 and Allen County data on the variables that are tracked for vehicle accidents.

Why was the blinking light removed from this intersection in 2019 and has that impacted safety at this location? The blinking yellow light on Jefferson-blinking red light on County Line was removed in 2019 after it stopped working and council was advised that ODOT would likely not support its replacement.

The Bluffton Police Department provided crash statistics for this location, which suggest that the number of crashes may not have increased since 2019 but that the chance of being injured has grown.

• 2014 PDO – 0, INJ – 0          
• 2015 PDO – 3, INJ – 0            
• 2016 PDO – 2, INJ – 0           
• 2017 PDO – 4, INJ – 0              
• 2018 PDO – 2, INJ – 0    
• 2019 PDO – 1, INJ – 1
• 2020 PDO – 5, INJ – 0
• 2021 PDO – 2, INJ – 1
• 2022 PDO – 1, INJ – 1
• 2023 PDO – 0, INJ – 1 (Jan-Jun)

The Ohio Crash Statistics System crash density map shows Jefferson and County Line as one of three red dots noting higher crash density; the other two red dots are Jefferson at Main and a midpoint among the businesses near I-75 on State Route 103.  

Data shows that the Bluffton Police Department responds to more crashes on State Route 103 than any other route in the Bluffton corporation limits.

The system also provides data on crash variables. For Allen County during the period of 2018-to present, the following variables are listed, sorted here by count:

Youth-Related (age 15-24) 5,221

Mature-related (age 55+) 5,192

Teen-related (age 15-19) 2,606

Failure to yield 2,402

Unbelted-related 2,388

Deer-related 1,930

Speed-related 1,876

Commercial-related 1,179

Ran red light/Stop sign 844

Distracted-related 813

OVI-related 718

Alcohol-related 599

Drug-related 232

Work zone-related 232

Motorcycle-related 221

Pedestrian-related 125

Bicycle-related 70

Crash data can be researched at https://ohtrafficdata.dps.ohio.gov/crashstatistics/home

Specific crash events can be researched at https://ohtrafficdata.dps.ohio.gov/crashretrieval