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

From 2020 through 2024, federal crash records list 63 fatal crashes inside Denton, in which 68 people died. The roads with the most were I-35 with 9 fatal crashes, University Dr (US-380 / US-377) with 9 and US-377 (street name not recorded) with 5.

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

The Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), kept by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), is the federal count of crashes on public roads in which someone died. For Denton it lists 63 fatal crashes from 2020 through 2024, with 68 people killed. The figures for 2020 to 2023 come from NHTSA's Final Files. Those for 2024 come from its Annual Report File, NHTSA's first release for that year, and may be revised.

The worst year was 2021, when 17 fatal crashes killed 20 people. Denton had 13 crashes and 14 deaths in 2020, 10 and 11 in 2022 and 15 and 15 in 2023, and the 2024 first release shows the lowest count of the five years, 8 crashes and 8 deaths. In 2023 and 2024 each fatal crash killed one person, while in each of the first three years at least one crash killed more than one.

Denton County as a whole recorded 262 fatal crashes and 281 deaths over the same years, so the city accounts for 24 percent of both. Statewide, Texas recorded 19,209 fatal crashes and 21,238 deaths. Among the Texas places in our guides, Denton's 68 deaths rank 22nd, which means 21 places recorded more; 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.

Two roads share the top of Denton's table. I-35 and University Dr (US-380 / US-377) each had 9 fatal crashes from 2020 through 2024, so neither leads on crashes. The crashes on I-35 killed 10 people, the latest in 2023, and those on University Dr (US-380 / US-377) killed 9, the latest in 2024. Next comes US-377 (street name not recorded), where 5 crashes killed 7 people, the widest gap between crashes and deaths of any row, with a fatal crash as recent as 2024.

I-35E and Loop (State Route 288) follow with 4 fatal crashes each: 5 deaths on I-35E, the latest in 2023, and 4 on Loop (State Route 288), the latest in 2024. Frontage Rd (I-35) had 3 crashes and 3 deaths, the latest in 2023, and FM 428 had 2 crashes that killed 3 people, the latest in 2021. McKinney St (FM 426), with a fatal crash in 2024, State Route 288 and Dallas Dr (US-77) complete the table with 2 crashes and 2 deaths each.

Together the ten rows hold 42 of Denton's 63 fatal crashes, 67 percent, and 47 of its 68 deaths, which leaves 21 crashes on roads outside the table. Four rows had a fatal crash in 2024: University Dr (US-380 / US-377), US-377 (street name not recorded), Loop (State Route 288) and McKinney St (FM 426). A row's count shows where deaths were recorded, not how risky a road is or who caused any crash.

Evenings carried the most weight. Between 6 p.m. and midnight there were 27 fatal crashes, 43 percent of the total, and another 10 came between midnight and 6 a.m. Mornings had more fatal crashes than afternoons: 17 happened between 6 a.m. and noon, nearly twice the 9 between noon and 6 p.m. By light, 33 crashes, 52 percent, happened after dark, 19 of them where there was lighting, 13 where there was none and 1 with the lighting unknown; 27 happened in daylight, 2 at dusk and 1 at dawn.

Wednesday and Sunday tied for the most fatal crashes, 12 each, followed by Monday with 10 and Friday with 9; Saturday and Thursday had 8 each, and Tuesday only 4. The weather was clear for 46 crashes, cloudy for 12 and rainy for 4, with 1 reported as unknown. FARS coded 50 of the crashes as urban and 12 as rural, and 1 was on a trafficway not in the state inventory. Five happened in work zones, 4 of them construction zones.

In 31 crashes the first harmful event, meaning the first event that caused injury or damage, was a collision with another motor vehicle in transport, one moving or stopped in the roadway. Seventeen of those were angle crashes, 10 rear-end, 2 head-on and 2 sideswipes. The other 32 began differently, most often with a pedestrian being struck, in 13. Two vehicles were involved in 29 crashes, more than the 26 single-vehicle crashes, and 8 involved three or more. Eighteen crashes were at or related to an intersection, and 32 were away from any junction.

Motorcycle and moped riders stand out in Denton's toll. Of the 68 people killed, 19, or 28 percent, were on a motorcycle or moped. FARS counts them inside the occupant figures rather than adding them: 39 of the dead were drivers and 12 were passengers, 51 people killed in or on vehicles, so riders were more than a third of those occupants.

Outside vehicles, 14 pedestrians died, 21 percent of all deaths, along with 2 bicyclists and 1 person on a personal conveyance, a FARS category kept apart from walking and cycling. Seventeen of the 63 crashes, 27 percent, involved a pedestrian, cyclist or other person outside a vehicle. The questions in a claim differ by group: for a rider, often whether the other driver saw the motorcycle and left room; for a person on foot, where the person was and what the driver could have seen.

This example is hypothetical, and its round numbers only show how the Texas rules work. Suppose a motorcyclist is slowing for traffic on a Denton road on a weekday morning when a pickup hits the bike from behind, a rear-end crash like 10 of the city's collisions between vehicles. The rider breaks a wrist and a collarbone. Medical bills reach $55,000 and lost pay $15,000, and pain and suffering is valued at $50,000, for $120,000 in all. The pickup driver's insurer says the rider cut in and braked hard, and it assigns him 25 percent of the fault.

Texas follows modified comparative negligence with a 51 percent bar: you can recover as long as you were not more than 50 percent at fault, and your award is reduced by your share of fault. At 25 percent, the rider's $120,000 becomes $90,000. At 50 percent it would be $60,000, and at 51 percent nothing at all, so the dispute over the lane change could decide whether he is paid. A helmet camera, the pickup's crash data and witnesses are common evidence on that point.

Who pays is a separate question. Texas is an at-fault state, so the claim goes to the pickup driver's liability insurer, and Texas requires at least 30/60/25 in coverage: $30,000 for each injured person, $60,000 for everyone hurt in one crash and $25,000 for property damage. If the pickup driver carried only the minimum, the policy would pay at most $30,000 toward the rider's $90,000, and whether any other coverage reaches the remaining $60,000 is a question for an attorney.

In Texas, reporting is the driver's duty. Tex. Transp. Code § 550.026 covers any collision in which someone is hurt or killed or a vehicle is left unable to be driven normally and safely: the driver must report it immediately, by the quickest means of communication. Where the report goes depends on location: inside Denton, to the local police; within 100 feet outside city limits, to the local police or the sheriff; anywhere else, to the sheriff or the nearest Department of Public Safety office. Drivers file no written report of their own: TxDOT stopped taking the driver's report, the CR-2, after September 1, 2017, and the officer files the crash report, the CR-3, with TxDOT within 10 days.

• Write down the responding agency and the report number; once filed, the CR-3 can be bought through TxDOT's Crash Report Online Purchase System.
• After a motorcycle crash, keep the helmet, riding gear and bike as they are until they have been photographed; 19 of the 68 people killed in Denton were riders.
• If it is safe, photograph the lane markings, the signals and where each vehicle stopped; 18 of the city's fatal crashes were at or related to an intersection.
• See a doctor the same day and keep every bill, record and note of missed work.
• If you were working when the crash happened, tell your employer within 30 days; a claim with the Texas Division of Workers' Compensation is generally due within one year.

A lawsuit over a crash in Denton is typically filed in the Denton County District Court, although the facts of a case can make another court proper, which an attorney decides. Texas generally gives an injured person two years from the date of injury to sue (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003). For the families of people killed, a wrongful death claim generally has two years from the date of death (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(b)).

Some claims follow other rules. If a government vehicle or employee may be involved, the claim against that government body has its own deadline: 6 months, and some city charters are shorter (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 101.101); the time to sue after such a claim is set separately by state law. When the injured person is a child, the two-year period generally pauses until the child turns 18.

The rider in the example keeps $90,000 at 25 percent fault because Texas reduces an award rather than ending it, until the injured person's share passes 50 percent. Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia use contributory negligence instead, under which an injured person found even slightly at fault is generally barred, so the same 25 percent could mean no recovery there. Some other states use pure comparative negligence, which lets even a mostly at-fault person recover a reduced amount.

The insurance system matters too. Texas is an at-fault state, so the rider's claim runs against the pickup driver's liability policy. Florida, Michigan, New York and New Jersey are no-fault states, where an injured person's own policy pays certain losses first, whoever caused the crash. Deadlines differ as well: Tennessee allows one year for most injury claims, and Florida shortened its negligence deadline to two years in 2023, so a rule learned in another state may not fit a Denton crash.

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 your state. Most personal injury attorneys work on contingency, and an attorney must evaluate the facts before anyone can say whether a claim exists. If you were hurt in a Denton crash, on a motorcycle, in a car or on foot, 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.

• Denton, 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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