The Traffic Safety Risks of Winter Weather in the Lake-Effect Belt of Northeast Ohio

Snow and ice-covered roads cause numerous issues from slippery pavement to severely reduced visibility and thus can hinder transportation services and impact public safety. Car crashes are one such common occurrence during wintry conditions. While the general relationship between traffic accidents and adverse weather conditions has been studied by many, little research has been done to quantify the association between repeated small-scale winter weather events and motor vehicle accidents. Other work that has reported about these accident hotspots has focused more on snow overall than its source or just lake-effect snow exclusively and not in comparison to synoptic-scale systems. In this paper, we analyzed the likelihood of a motor vehicle accident among varying weather conditions in the primary snowbelt of Northeast Ohio across five winter seasons. Findings concur with past work on the hierarchy of crash risk by precipitation type, with overall crash relative risk estimates from highest to lowest observed during freezing rain, snow, and rain events, respectively. Further results reveal how the inconsistent nature of lake-effect snow influences accident frequency with the largest spatiotemporal indicators of elevated relative risk during lake-effect snow occurring when crash counts are delineated by county/county region, road type, and month. In certain scenarios, lake-effect snow may be associated with up to a 10 times greater likelihood of an accident than in clear conditions. These conclusions can provide important information for local and regional transportation officials to improve winter weather roadway management through targeted road treatment plans and driver awareness campaigns.