Bike Cleveland: fewer than half of 911 calls about pedestrians, cyclists get state crash reports; group urges longer video retention and more staff

Bike Cleveland told the City Council Transportation & Mobility Committee that its 2024 bicyclist and pedestrian crash report found less than half of 911 calls labeled as “pedestrian struck” resulted in official state crash forms (OH-1), a gap the group said undermines victims’ access to insurance and courts and limits planners’ and funders’ ability to target safety projects.

The discrepancy matters because “victims rely on OH-1s,” Jenna Thomas, advocacy director at Bike Cleveland, told the committee. She said planners and funders such as the Ohio Department of Transportation, metropolitan planning organizations and NOACA also use OH-1 data to set safety and funding priorities.

Bike Cleveland described its method as matching computer-aided dispatch (911) incident records with responding officers’ OH-1 forms and with real-time-crime-center video where available. The group said volunteers validated entries, removed duplicates and recoded miscoded incidents to produce what Bike Cleveland called a more complete count of people struck while walking, bicycling or using mobility devices.

“What we found was…