Fatal collisions have tremendous costs for victims, their families, employers and communities as a whole. In Ottawa, Ontario, more than 20 people are killed in preventable traffic collisions each year, making road safety an important priority for everyone.

In 2017, the Fatal Collision Review Committee (FCRC) was established to take a closer look at the circumstances involved in fatal collisions and identify key factors as well as trends. Data collection and analysis are essential to guide the development of solutions to mitigate and prevent these collisions.

The FCRC is a multi-agency initiative which was formed and operates under the authority of the Coroner’s Act. The purpose of the FCRC is to facilitate the prompt sharing of information between its members following fatal collisions to improve understanding about contributing factors in those collisions. Their role also includes identifying recommendations, if any, for roadway, enforcement campaigns and public education initiatives to prevent future deaths. The Committee was established in 2017 and includes members representing the Ottawa Police Service, the City of Ottawa, Ottawa Public Health, the Eastern Regional Supervising Coroner’s Office, and others as required based on the nature of each collision.

This report is the first to be released by the FCRC. It contains information about fatal collisions occurring between 2017 and 2020 on City of Ottawa roadways and private property. It does not include collisions occurring on provincial or federal roadways (such as 400-series highways and National Capital Commission Roads) within the City. The report also references some general collision statistics obtained from the City’s collision database which contains data captured by police agencies as part of Motor Vehicle Collision Reports (MVCRs) documenting reportable collisions in the province of Ontario.

This report analyses data about contributing factors identified during the review of fatal collisions. Definitions for key terms used to describe the data are located in the glossary in the front of this report. The data are meant for discussion purposes only and to supplement the collision data typically available to road safety practitioners in order to help guide decisions related to engineering, enforcement or education initiatives. The data in this report is shared in a manner that respects the confidential and private nature of individual collision circumstances discussed by the FCRC. Observations identified in the data summaries have not undergone statistical validation.