Car Accidents in Dallas: 2023 Crash Data and How a Claim Works

NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System records every fatal crash on public roads. For 2023, crashes coded to the city of Dallas account for 207 deaths in 198 fatal crashes, fifth nationally behind Los Angeles, Phoenix, Houston and Memphis. Fort Worth, Arlington, Garland and Irving each appear separately in the data, and the Dallas-Fort Worth region as a whole records several hundred more deaths than the city alone.

Dallas's pattern is a freeway pattern. The leading locations are all limited-access highways or Loop 12. Only 50 of 198 fatal crashes were intersection-related, a quarter, and the most common first harmful event, 136 crashes, was something other than hitting another moving vehicle, meaning a fixed object, a rollover or a pedestrian. Rear-end collisions, 23, outnumbered head-on crashes, which is what high-speed, high-volume freeways produce.

Night accounts for 126 of 198 fatal crashes, 64 percent, and 71 were on a weekend. Pedestrians and cyclists were involved in 75, a 38 percent share, many of them on freeways and frontage roads rather than city streets. FARS counts fatal crashes only; injury crashes on the same corridors are many times more numerous.

FARS roadway coding, as reported by Texas, identifies the corridors where fatal crashes concentrated in 2023.

• I-35E / Stemmons Freeway: 8 fatal crashes on the section north of downtown, with a further 6 coded to I-35E generally and 4 to I-35.
• Loop 12 (SR-12): 7 fatal crashes on the ring road, including the Northwest Highway and Buckner Boulevard sections.
• I-20: 5 fatal crashes across the southern edge of the city.
• I-30 / Tom Landry Highway: 4 fatal crashes.
• Across all coding, I-35E and its related sections account for 18 fatal crashes, the deadliest corridor in the city.

A rear-end crash on the Stemmons Freeway at speed is a fault case that looks simple and often is not. The rear driver is presumed at fault, but on a freeway the defense is a sudden stop in traffic, a lane change by the front vehicle, or a chain reaction started by a third car. In a multi-vehicle freeway crash, the insurers of the vehicles involved blame each other, and the injured person's claim waits while they do.

The evidence that resolves it is the vehicles' event data recorders, which capture speed and braking in the seconds before impact, and camera footage from the Texas Department of Transportation's freeway system and from commercial vehicles, many of which carry forward-facing cameras. Both are lost quickly, the recorders when the cars are scrapped and the footage when it is overwritten.

Texas's 51 percent bar makes the fault percentage decisive. A front driver assigned 51 percent for an abrupt lane change recovers nothing; at 50 percent, half. The negotiation is about that number, and the physical evidence is what moves it.

Suppose you were stopped in slowing traffic on I-35E at night when a pickup struck your car from behind at speed, pushing you into the vehicle ahead. You suffered a herniated disc in your neck that required injections and a concussion, with $64,000 in medical bills and three months off work. The pickup driver's insurer argued you had changed lanes abruptly in front of its driver and assigned you 45 percent of the fault.

Your event data recorder showed you had been in the lane, braking steadily, for eleven seconds before impact. The pickup's recorder showed no braking before the crash. With that evidence, the fault assignment was abandoned in negotiation. The pickup driver carried a $30,000 Texas minimum policy, which was paid, and your own underinsured motorist coverage of $100,000 covered the rest of the claim, with your health insurer's lien reduced in the settlement.

The vehicle ahead of you, which you were pushed into, made no claim against you because the rear driver was at fault for both impacts. The claim settled at month fifteen, inside Texas's two-year deadline. All figures are hypothetical.

Dallas freeway crashes depend on evidence held in the vehicles and by agencies, and on coverage that is often the injured person's own.

• Get the Dallas Police Department or Texas DPS report number; Texas crash reports are available through TxDOT's online system.
• Ask that no vehicle be scrapped before its event data recorder is downloaded, and have preservation letters sent for TxDOT camera footage within days.
• If a commercial vehicle was involved, ask for its dash camera footage and the carrier's identity at the scene.
• Photograph the scene, lighting and the position of every vehicle in a chain collision; the order of impacts is argued later.
• Report to your own insurer the same day and confirm your uninsured and underinsured motorist limits and personal injury protection in writing.
• Get medical care within a day; concussions and disc injuries in rear-end crashes surface over the following days.
• If a road defect or a government vehicle was involved, note the six-month Texas Tort Claims Act notice period and any shorter city charter period.

Texas is a fault state. The at-fault driver's liability insurer is the primary source of recovery. Texas insurers must offer personal injury protection of at least $2,500, which pays your own medical bills and lost wages regardless of fault unless rejected in writing, and uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, which can also be rejected. The minimum liability coverage is $30,000 per person, $60,000 per accident and $25,000 for property damage.

Fault follows modified comparative negligence with a 51 percent bar under Texas's proportionate responsibility statute: you recover if your share is 50 percent or less, reduced by that share. The injury deadline is two years from the crash under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003. Claims against the City of Dallas, Dallas County, DART or TxDOT fall under the Texas Tort Claims Act, with damage caps and a six-month notice requirement that some city charters shorten.

Crashes in Fort Worth, Arlington, Garland, Irving and the other cities of the metroplex follow the same Texas rules; Fort Worth alone recorded 118 deaths in 2023. Workers' compensation for a crash on the job runs through the Texas Division of Workers' Compensation with a one-year claim deadline, and Texas employers who have opted out of the system can be sued directly.

A Dallas claim is often a freeway claim where the fault percentage, the event data and the injured person's own underinsured coverage decide the outcome. The questions to answer early are what the recorders and cameras show, what coverage exists on both sides, and whether a chain collision has put two insurers in a position to blame each other. Most personal injury attorneys work on contingency.

Ask Legal Matters is a free claim-review request service, not a law firm. 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 what the claim is worth. If you were hurt in a crash in Dallas or Dallas County, you can request a free claim review.

• Dallas, Texas: local injury guide, court and deadlines
• Car Accident Claims in the United States: The Complete Guide
• Truck Accident Claims: Liability, Federal Rules and Compensation
• Pedestrian Accident Claims: Rights, Fault and Compensation
• Car Accidents in Fort Worth: 2023 Data and How a Claim Works
• Car Accidents in Lubbock: 2023 Crash Data and How a Claim Works
• Car Accidents in Houston: 2023 Crash Data and How a Claim Works
• Hit by an Amazon Delivery Van: Who Is Liable and Who Pays
• What Negligence Means in a Car Accident Claim: The Four Elements
• Hit by a Government Vehicle: Police Car, City Truck Claims

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