Fatal crash rate in Lorain County, Ohio

Fatal crashes recorded by NHTSA in Lorain County, Ohio, 2020 to 2024, divided by the people who live there. Fatal crashes only: not injuries, not all crashes, not traffic in general.

Lorain County, Ohio2024 · fatal crashes recorded by NHTSA

7.8fatal crashes per 100,000 residents in 2024

In 2024, NHTSA recorded 25 fatal crashes in Lorain County, Ohio, where 321,159 people lived. That is 7.8 fatal crashes for every 100,000 residents, and 26 people died in those crashes. Over 2020 to 2024 the average was 7.3.

010203040

Ohio 9.1

US 10.7

Lorain County 7.8

The road is a scale of fatal crashes per 100,000 residents in 2024, 0 to 40. The yellow post is Lorain County; the white posts are Ohio and the United States.

Per 100,000: 25 fatal crashes ÷ 321,159 residents × 100,000 = 7.8
Five-year: 115 crashes (2020 to 2024) ÷ 1,583,875 resident-years × 100,000 = 7.3
Same year: Ohio: 1,077 ÷ 11,860,621 = 9.1 · United States: 36,297 ÷ 340,003,797 = 10.7

Every year, 2020 to 2024

US 10.7

4.8

11.1

6.3

7.8

20202021202220232024

Bars: this place, fatal crashes per 100,000 residents. Dashed line: the United States in the latest year. Source: NHTSA FARS and Census population estimates, each year.

Year	Fatal crashes	Deaths	Population	Per 100,000
2020	15	17	313,514	4.8
2021	35	39	314,094	11.1
2022	20	21	316,304	6.3
2023	20	21	318,804	6.3
2024	25	26	321,159	7.8

2024 is NHTSA’s Annual Report File and will be revised when the final file replaces it. Populations are July 1 estimates, Census Vintage 2025.

What the record says about those crashes, 2020 to 2024

Every figure is a count of the 115 fatal crashes NHTSA coded to Lorain County, Ohio over five years, from the fields FARS records. Nothing is estimated or inferred.

Road type	Crashes	Share
Interstate	10	9%
Other freeway or expressway	4	3%
Other principal arterial	24	21%
Minor arterial	41	36%
Major collector	18	16%
Minor collector	0	0%
Local road	18	16%
Unknown or not reported	0	0%
Rural	35	30%
Urban	80	70%

Time of day	Crashes	Share
Midnight to 5:59 am	21	18%
6 am to 11:59 am	19	17%
Noon to 5:59 pm	36	31%
6 pm to 11:59 pm	39	34%
Hour unknown	0	0%

Light	Crashes	Share
Daylight	56	49%
Dark, not lighted (or lighting unknown)	24	21%
Dark, lighted	32	28%
Dawn or dusk	3	3%
Unknown or not reported	0	0%

Weather	Crashes	Share
Clear	74	64%
Cloudy	21	18%
Rain	14	12%
Snow, sleet or freezing rain	6	5%
Fog, smog or smoke	0	0%
Severe wind, blowing sand or other	0	0%
Unknown or not reported	0	0%

Involving	Crashes	Share
A pedestrian	9	8%
A bicyclist or other cyclist	2	2%
A speeding-related vehicle	41	36%
A driver police reported as drinking	33	29%

Most-named roads	Crashes
I-80	6
SR-303	4
SR-57 JFK MEMORIAL PKWY	4
US-20	4
SR-611 HENDERSON DR	3

Road type is FARS FUNC_SYS; speeding is any vehicle coded SPEEDREL 2 to 5; drinking is any driver coded DRINKING = 1 (police-reported, not a blood-alcohol test). Road names are the trafficway strings as the police coded them, counted as written, so the same road can appear under two spellings.

How this is counted

Fatal crashes are rows in NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) file FARS2024NationalCSV.zip, accident.csv, one row per crash on a public road in which someone died within 30 days. Deaths are the FATALS field. Counties are the FARS STATE and COUNTY codes joined to Census FIPS codes.
Population is the Census Bureau’s July 1 estimate for the same year, county totals, Vintage 2025. Rate per 100,000 = crashes ÷ population × 100,000.
The five-year average is total crashes over the years with both inputs ÷ total population over those years × 100,000, the rolling form in 23 CFR 490.207.
What it cannot say. FARS has no injury-only or property-damage crashes, no congestion, and nothing about any one driver, trip or road’s risk. A crash is counted where it happened, not where the people lived. Rates are not ranked here; comparing two places means comparing both sets of inputs.

Informational only, not professional advice. Last reviewed: October 2026. Data snapshot built 2026-10-28.