Fatal car crashes in Abilene, TX: deadliest roads, 2020-2024

From 2020 through 2024, federal crash records list 68 fatal crashes inside Abilene, in which 74 people died. The roads with the most were US-83 with 7 fatal crashes, I-20 Business with 7 and 1st St (US-84) with 6.

Filing deadline, fault rule, insurance and the court for a crash in Abilene: Abilene, TX injury guide.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration keeps the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), a nationwide file of crashes on public roads in which someone died. For Abilene it lists 68 fatal crashes from 2020 through 2024, with 74 deaths. NHTSA's Final Files supply the 2020 to 2023 counts, and its Annual Report File supplies 2024's; that file is the first release for the year, so the 2024 numbers can still be revised.

The five years were far from steady. Abilene had 13 fatal crashes and 13 deaths in 2020 and 16 of each in 2021. In 2022 the count jumped to 21 crashes, which killed 26 people, so at least one crash that year killed more than one person. It then fell to 7 crashes and 7 deaths in 2023, the lowest of the five years, before rising to 11 crashes and 12 deaths in 2024.

Most of Taylor County's fatal crashes happened inside Abilene. The county logged 101 fatal crashes and 109 deaths over the same years, and the city's 68 crashes and 74 deaths are 67 and 68 percent of those totals. Texas as a whole recorded 19,209 fatal crashes and 21,238 deaths. Abilene's 74 deaths rank 20th among the Texas places in our guides; the five highest totals were Houston's 1,582, Dallas's 1,112, San Antonio's 917, Fort Worth's 588 and Austin's 525.

No road runs far ahead in Abilene. US-83 and I-20 Business tie for the most fatal crashes, 7 each, and both had one as recently as 2024; US-83's killed 8 people and I-20 Business's 7. 1st St (US-84) is one crash behind with 6 crashes and 6 deaths, the latest in 2023. Grape St follows with 5 crashes and 5 deaths, none more recent than 2022, and Pine St (US-83 Business) had 4 crashes and 4 deaths, the latest in 2024.

Five more rows have 2 fatal crashes each: I-20, 14th St, 7th St, Ambler Ave (State Route 351) and Arnold Blvd (FM 3438). I-20 stands out: its 2 crashes killed 4 people. Together the ten rows in the table account for 39 of Abilene's 68 fatal crashes, 57 percent, and 42 of its 74 deaths, so the other 29 crashes happened on roads outside the table.

That spread matters when reading the table. A road with several fatal crashes is not proof that the road caused any of them, and a crash elsewhere is no less serious. What decides a claim is that crash's own evidence, the officer's report, the vehicles, the scene, witnesses and any video, which is easiest to gather in the first days.

Motorcycle and moped riders stand out in Abilene's toll. Twenty-two of the 74 people killed were on a motorcycle or moped, 30 percent. By role, 43 of the dead were drivers, 13 were passengers, 15 were pedestrians and 3 were bicyclists. Counted by crash rather than by person, 18 of the 68 fatal crashes involved a pedestrian, cyclist or other person outside a vehicle, 26 percent.

Each group's claim tends to turn on different questions. For a rider, it is often visibility and right of way; half of the 28 crashes that began with a collision with another vehicle in transport were angle crashes, in which the front of one vehicle strikes the side of another. For a pedestrian or cyclist, the questions are where the person was, the signals and whether the driver could have seen them in time. For drivers and passengers, they usually start with which vehicle left its lane or failed to yield.

Abilene's fatal crashes were split almost evenly between daylight and darkness: 32 happened in daylight and 33 after dark, 25 of those on lighted roads and 8 on roads without lighting. One happened at dusk, and the light was coded as other in 1 and not reported in 1. By the clock, the six hours from 6 p.m. to midnight were the worst, with 27 crashes; noon to 6 p.m. had 21, midnight to 6 a.m. 12 and 6 a.m. to noon 8.

Saturday had the most fatal crashes, 16, with Thursday close behind at 15; Friday and Wednesday had 9 each, Tuesday and Sunday 7 each, and Monday the fewest, 5. The weather was clear in 56 crashes, cloudy in 10 and rainy in 2. Two crashes happened in a construction work zone, and FARS coded all but 2 of the 68 as urban.

Collisions between vehicles were a large share. In 28 crashes the first harmful event was a collision with another motor vehicle in transport, meaning one moving or stopped in the roadway: 14 angle crashes, 7 head-on, 3 rear-end and 4 of other or unreported types. In the remaining 40, a pedestrian was struck first in 14 and a vehicle rolled over in 5, and the rest began with events such as hitting a curb, a cyclist, a barrier or a pole. Twenty-four crashes were at or related to an intersection, and 33 were non-junction, away from any intersection, driveway or ramp.

This example is hypothetical, with rounded numbers. Suppose a motorcyclist riding through an Abilene intersection on a Saturday evening is hit by a pickup turning left across his path. His medical bills come to $70,000 and his lost pay to $20,000, and his pain and suffering are valued at $30,000, a total of $120,000. The pickup driver's insurer accepts that its driver turned without enough room but says the rider was speeding and assigns him 30 percent of the fault.

Texas applies modified comparative negligence with a 51 percent bar. The injured person can recover as long as he was not more than 50 percent at fault, and the award is reduced by his share. At 30 percent, the $120,000 becomes $84,000; at exactly 50 percent, it would be $60,000. Above 50 percent, the rider would recover nothing, so evidence of his speed, such as video, skid marks or data from the vehicles, can decide whether there is any recovery, not just how much.

Then there is the question of who pays. Because Texas uses the at-fault system, the rider's claim goes to the pickup driver's liability insurer. State law sets the minimum policy at 30/60/25: such a policy pays at most $30,000 per injured person, $60,000 per crash for everyone hurt and $25,000 for property. A driver who bought only that floor leaves the rider $54,000 short of his $84,000, and whether any other source covers that gap is for an attorney to work out.

Texas asks little paperwork of drivers but is strict on timing. When a collision injures or kills anyone, or leaves a vehicle unable to be driven normally and safely, Tex. Transp. Code § 550.026 requires the driver to report it immediately, by the quickest means of communication; inside Abilene's city limits, that report goes to the local police. The officer, not the driver, then files the crash report, a CR-3, with TxDOT within 10 days. TxDOT stopped taking a driver's own report, the CR-2, after September 1, 2017.

• If a rider was hurt, photograph the motorcycle, the helmet and the other vehicle before any repair; 22 of the 74 people killed in Abilene were on a motorcycle or moped.
• Ask the officer for the agency's name and the report number, then buy the CR-3 through TxDOT's Crash Report Online Purchase System once it is filed.
• After an intersection crash, write down what the signal showed and look for cameras on nearby businesses; 24 of the city's fatal crashes were at or related to an intersection.
• See a doctor the same day and keep every bill; a gap before treatment gives an insurer room to argue the injury came later.
• Be careful with recorded statements to the other driver's insurer, since in Texas a fault share above 50 percent ends a claim.
• Note the crash date; the two-year lawsuit clock generally runs from it, and a government claim clock is much shorter.

For a crash inside Abilene, a personal injury lawsuit would ordinarily go to the Taylor County District Court, though some cases belong in another county or in federal court. Texas generally gives an injured person two years from the date of injury to sue (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003). A family's wrongful death claim generally has two years from the date of death (§ 16.003(b)). A suit filed after the deadline will generally be dismissed.

A claim against a city, county, school district or state agency must reach that government body within 6 months, and some city charters are shorter (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 101.101); that deadline is for the claim, not a lawsuit. If the injured person is a child, the two-year clock generally pauses until 18. And if the crash happened on the job, Texas workers' compensation may also apply through the Texas Division of Workers' Compensation; the employer generally must be told within 30 days, and the claim filed within one year.

Texas sits in the middle of the range of fault rules: its 51 percent bar keeps a claim alive up to 50 percent fault and ends it above that line. Some states let even a mostly at-fault person recover a reduced amount, while Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia apply contributory negligence, under which an injured person found even slightly at fault is generally barred. The rider in the example, 30 percent at fault, recovers $84,000 in Texas but, as a general rule, nothing in those four states.

A second difference is who pays first. In Texas, an at-fault state, the claim runs against the liability insurer of the driver who caused the crash. Florida, Michigan, New York and New Jersey take the no-fault approach: each injured person's own policy covers certain losses first, whatever the cause. Timing is the third difference. Tennessee gives one year for most injury claims, half the general Texas period, so a delay that is safe in Abilene could end a claim there.

Most personal injury attorneys work on contingency, taking a percentage of any recovery as the fee. Ask Legal Matters is a personal injury lead-generation service that collects free case review requests from injured people in the United States and shares them with independent attorneys and law firms. It is not a law firm and does not give legal advice. Requests may be shared with independent attorneys and legal services partners who handle inquiries in Texas, and an attorney must evaluate the facts before anyone can say whether a claim exists. If you or a family member was hurt in a crash in Abilene, you can request a free case review.

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• What should you do after a car accident?

More on this type of claim: Car accidents: evidence, deadlines and when to ask an attorney.

• Abilene, Texas: local injury guide, court and deadlines
• Car Accident Claims in the United States: The Complete Guide
• Motorcycle Accident Claims: Overcoming Rider Bias and Recovering Fully

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