Jacob Kuehne was working along State Route 125 in Cincinnati when a newer white Ford F-150 came through the intersection and struck him on his left side, throwing him three or four feet, according to his wife, Maricela Kuehne. The driver yelled at him before driving off, she says — leaving behind only a woman who stopped her own car to stay with him until help arrived.
Maricela Kuehne told FOX19 that her husband called her from the scene to say he had been hit by a pickup truck. He explained that a walk-sign connection had shorted out, sending the traffic light into a four-way flash right as the crash happened, she said. Jacob Kuehne is a heavy highway electrician who traveled to Cincinnati for the job, arriving on September 24, according to the outlet's reporting.
The family lives in Clyde, Ohio, a Sandusky County town roughly 200 miles north of Cincinnati that requires more than four hours of driving each way, per MapSof.net. That distance has made the ordeal harder on the family, with Maricela Kuehne saying she did not get her husband's usual lunchtime phone call the day of the crash — the first sign something was wrong.
A Stranger Who Stayed, and a Driver Who Didn't
Jacob Kuehne was taken to the hospital with injuries his wife described as minor. But it's the aftermath that's consumed her since: finding the woman who pulled over and stayed with her husband, and finding the driver who left him in the road. The station's report notes Maricela Kuehne wants to thank the woman personally and has invited her to reach out directly.
She also wants the driver who fled held accountable, telling the outlet that families of roadside workers simply want their loved ones to come home safely. Ohio law gives that accountability some teeth. Leaving the scene of a crash is a first-degree misdemeanor under state law, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for property damage, according to the Makridis Law Firm — a charge that escalates to a felony if the crash causes serious injury or death. A conviction also carries a mandatory license suspension of six months to three years and six points on the driver's record.
A Corridor With a History of Close Calls
State Route 125 — known as Beechmont Avenue in Hamilton County and Ohio Pike in Clermont County — is a heavily traveled arterial corridor that regional transportation planners and legal analysts have flagged as a high-risk area for collisions, according to Steiden Law Offices. It's also seen tragedy before: in April, a 36-year-old surveyor working along the same route in Clermont County was struck and killed by a driver later charged with aggravated vehicular homicide and operating a vehicle under the influence, as reported by WHIO-TV.
Ohio's Move Over Law requires drivers approaching any stationary roadside vehicle with flashing lights — including construction, maintenance, and utility crews — to shift lanes or slow down significantly, per the Ohio Department of Transportation. A first offense carries fines up to double the standard amount, and under Ohio Revised Code 4511.98, moving-violation fines are automatically doubled inside posted highway construction work zones, according to American Legal Publishing.
A Statewide Spike in Work Zone Crashes
The danger facing roadside crews isn't isolated to one intersection. Ohio recorded 4,435 work zone crashes in 2025, with more than a third occurring while workers were actually present, according to state highway patrol data cited by ODOT. Those crashes killed 21 people in 17 separate incidents and left 96 others with serious injuries, reversing a three-year decline the agency had seen from 2022 through 2024.
ODOT's own roadside workers, vehicles, and equipment were struck 88 times statewide in 2025, up from 84 the year before. Troopers issued more than 7,000 speeding citations in work zones that same year, with over a third of those drivers clocked going more than 20 mph over the limit. Nationally, a 2025 survey by the Associated General Contractors of America found that 60% of highway construction contractors had experienced at least one work zone crash involving a moving vehicle in the prior year, part of a 50% rise in U.S. work zone fatalities between 2013 and 2023, according to Ohio Contractor.
Maricela Kuehne has urged drivers to pay closer attention to flashing lights and construction zones and to respect posted speed limits. It's a plea echoed across Greater Cincinnati in recent weeks: Hoodline has reported on a Batavia hit-and-run that killed a father of four not far from the same corridor, part of a string of unresolved hit-and-run cases across the region this month. For now, the identity of the white F-150's driver remains unknown, and Maricela Kuehne continues waiting — for the woman who stopped, and for the driver who didn't.
