Odds of dying of overdose greater than those of dying in car crash

COLUMBUS – For the first time, you are more likely to die from an opioid overdose than in a car accident.

That is according to the National Safety Council, which says that the odds of dying from an opioid overdose are 1-in-96, compared with 1-in-103 for motor-vehicle deaths.

“The everyday risks we face either by getting in the car to commute to work or the drugs that may be in your medicine cabinet pose a much more significant risk than the headline news of a plane crash or a train crash or a lightning strike,” said the council’s manager of statistics, Ken Kolosh.

Ohio ranked second in the nation for the rate of opioid-related overdose deaths in 2017, at 46.3 per 100,000 people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While more people are aware of the opioid epidemic, Kolosh says 25 percent of those surveyed don’t consider it to be a problem that affects them personally but lifetime odds of death from opioid overdose that are much greater than the risk of death from falls, gunshot wounds, drowning or fire.