Ottawa’s most frequent and most dangerous crash intersections 3km apart

It’s Tuesday at 9:00 a.m. and you’re driving your kid to school. They’re yelling in the back of the car and you’re late for work. As if your morning couldn’t get anymore stressful, as you pull to a stop at a red light at Hunt Club Road and Riverside Drive, another vehicle slams your rear end.

The situation, which is the worst some can imagine, is more common than many would like to believe. New data released by Ottawa Police Services (OPS) says this intersection — bordering Hunt Club and Nepean — had the most crashes in 2024; totalling 96 incidents.

To some, this may not be surprising. The intersection is kitty-cornered to the airport and has a combined total of 14 lanes of traffic crisscrossing as well as pedestrian pathways. The force reports the vast majority — 73 per cent — of accidents in this area were rear ends, and they were most likely to occur on Tuesdays at 9:00 a.m.

While this intersection had the most collisions, it was actually another intersection three kilometres west that had the highest rate of injuries per collision. The Merivale Road and West Hunt Club Road intersection had 38 collisions, but 18.9 percent of them resulted in injuries.

Last year, there were 19,777 collisions across the city, with the Collision Reporting Centre processing 85 per cent of them. Officers say this freed up 16,500 calls for police.

For the city as a whole, accidents most frequently occurred on Thursdays at 4:00 p.m. as workers made their way home with one day left until the weekend. Of the nearly 20,000 collisions, 39 per cent involved non-fatal injuries.

Despite Carling Avenue receiving a bad reputation for vehicle accidents — the intersection of Carling Avenue and Kirkwood Avenue had the second most collisions — it is actually West Hunt Club Road that shows up most frequently in the 20 top intersections for collisions and those that caused the most injuries.

The most collisions across the city occurred in January and December, but despite collision rates higher in the winter months, the vast majority — 85 per cent — happened when driving conditions were clear. In 77 per cent of collisions, roads were dry.

The top four most common types of collisions were rear ends, single vehicle collisions, turning movement and same direction collisions. While the report does note that in the majority of cases the driver conditions were normal and the drivers were acting properly, it also states that in 169 cases drivers were driving with improper licenses and in an additional 129 cases licenses were expired.

“Improving road safety and enforcing the rules of the road are significant priorities for the Ottawa Police Service,” OPS write in a press release. “Our Traffic Services Unit is dedicated to improving safety.”

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