Car Accidents in Greensboro, NC: 2023 Data and Claim Rules

Fatal crashes on U.S. public roads are tracked in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), a database run by NHTSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in which a crash is counted if anyone involved dies within 30 days. Its 2023 data assigns 33 fatal crashes to Greensboro, all in Guilford County and all on urban roads, and 33 deaths, so each crash took one life. Clear weather was recorded for 27 crashes, cloudy skies for 5 and rain for 1.

People outside vehicles are central to the record. FARS counts 14 crashes, 42 percent of the total, involving a pedestrian, cyclist or other non-motorist. Ten of those crashes had a pedestrian strike as the first harmful event (the first event in the crash to cause injury or damage), and 2 had a cyclist strike. Vehicle-to-vehicle collisions accounted for 11 crashes: angle impacts in 6, head-on and rear-end impacts in 2 each, and an opposite-direction sideswipe in 1.

Among the remaining first events listed, 1 was a rollover and the rest were fixed objects: 2 culverts, 2 posts, poles or other supports, and a fire hydrant, a utility pole or light support, the face of a guardrail and a tree, 1 each. One crash's first event is not listed in the summary. As for location, FARS coded 25 crashes as non-junction, 4 as inside an intersection, 3 as intersection-related and 1 as driveway-related.

Darkness runs through the data. Twenty-two crashes, two in three, occurred after dark, 13 where street lights were on hand and 9 where there were none, while daylight accounted for 10 and dawn for 1. Sixteen crashes came overnight, between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m., while the remaining 17 happened during the day or evening. Thursday had 7 fatal crashes and Friday 6, and April, with 7, was the deadliest month; June, August, September and December had 1 each.

Sorted by functional class, Greensboro's crashes were spread widely: non-freeway principal arterials 9, minor arterials 6, other freeways or expressways 6, interstates 5, major collectors 4 and local streets 3. Interstates and other freeways together therefore carried 11 of the 33. The summary names 12 road entries, which between them account for 20 crashes; the other 13 occurred elsewhere.

Several Greensboro entries combine a route number and a street name, and one street can be coded more than one way; the MU- prefix on the Cridland Road entry is dropped here. The three US-70 Wendover Avenue entries, with and without an E or W direction, are combined below. West Gate City Boulevard appears under two different route numbers, SSR-4121 and US-29A, so those entries are kept separate. Roads that carry heavy traffic are likely to appear on any list like this, so it shows where deaths occurred, not how risky each mile is:

• US-29, 4 fatal crashes.
• US-70 Wendover Avenue, 4 fatal crashes: 2 coded E Wendover Ave, 1 W Wendover Ave and 1 with no direction.
• I-40, 3 fatal crashes.
• Creek Ridge Road and SSR-4121 West Gate City Boulevard, 2 each.
• Cridland Road, I-85, SSR-1007 Randleman Road, US-29A West Gate City Boulevard and Holts Chapel Road, 1 each.

The summary holds no data on speed, alcohol or distraction, and FARS describes how crashes unfold rather than why. Drivers have trouble seeing pedestrians at night, more so away from intersections and on unlit roads, and higher speeds shorten reaction time and make impacts more severe. Those are possible explanations for why darkness, non-junction locations and pedestrian crashes all feature so heavily in Greensboro's record, not findings about any one crash.

North Carolina's fault rule raises the stakes of every detail. Contributory negligence lets a defendant escape liability entirely by showing that the injured person contributed to the crash, even by 1 percent. In a pedestrian case, the insurer may point to where the person crossed, what they were wearing or whether they stepped into the road suddenly; with two vehicles, it may focus on whether the injured driver was a few miles over the limit or reacted late. A small share of blame, once proven, does not lower the award; it can eliminate it.

That puts early evidence at the center of a Greensboro claim. The exact spot where a pedestrian was struck, the distance to the nearest crosswalk, whether street lights were working, how far a driver's headlights would reach and video from homes and businesses nearby can all bear on fault. Conditions at a scene change quickly, so photographs and measurements taken in the first days are often the most reliable record. When a crash is fatal, the family has two years from the death to bring a wrongful death claim.

Suppose you were walking home along a Greensboro arterial at 9:30 p.m. and crossed about 100 yards from the nearest signal when a car going well over the speed limit hit you. Your injuries, a broken tibia and a fractured shoulder, ran up $90,000 in treatment costs and kept you out of work for five months, costing $15,000 in pay. The driver told police you came out of nowhere wearing dark clothes.

The driver's insurer took the position that crossing mid-block in dark clothing made you partly responsible, and under North Carolina's contributory negligence rule, proof of even 1 percent fault on your part could defeat the claim. The answer had to come from evidence. A doorbell camera on a nearby house showed you had nearly finished crossing when the car arrived, and an analysis of the damage and the car's event data put its speed at 55 miles per hour where the limit was 35.

Say a jury, persuaded by that evidence, valued your damages at $300,000 and found no fault on your part. Had the jury instead assigned you 10 percent of the fault, most states would merely have trimmed the award to $270,000; under North Carolina's rule, you could have recovered nothing. Even with a clean verdict, a driver carrying North Carolina's current minimum of $50,000 per person would leave $250,000 unpaid, and your own policy's underinsured motorist coverage, if its terms reach injuries suffered on foot, would be the next place to look. All facts and figures here are hypothetical.

Because a small share of blame can end a North Carolina claim, the steps below concentrate on recording what you did right, along with what the other driver did wrong. They apply whether you were walking, cycling, driving or riding as a passenger.

• Get the crash reported through 911, and keep the report number and the name of the responding agency, whether Greensboro police or the State Highway Patrol.
• Pedestrians and cyclists should pin down the exact crossing point or riding line and its distance from the closest crosswalk or signal.
• Photograph the street lights, how bright or dark the spot is and the clothes you had on, ideally at the same time of night as the crash.
• Ask anyone who stopped to help for a name and number, and knock on doors nearby within days, since doorbell and security cameras often overwrite footage quickly.
• Avoid estimating speeds or distances for anyone at the scene; a guess made in shock can later be quoted against you.
• Keep every medical appointment and save the paperwork, since the records show how the injury developed.
• Ask your insurer if your policy's protection against uninsured and underinsured drivers extends to you on foot or on a bike, and what its limits are.

Contributory negligence, now rare among the states, remains North Carolina law. Under it, recovery can be barred altogether once the defense proves the injured person was responsible for as little as 1 percent of the crash, so evidence has to be preserved early. Alabama, Maryland and Virginia share the rule. Elsewhere, comparative negligence is the norm: Arizona and Missouri subtract the injured person's share of fault with no cutoff, and Nebraska does the same until that share reaches 50 percent.

Payment in North Carolina follows fault: the at-fault driver's liability insurer usually pays, whereas in Florida, Michigan or New York, all no-fault states, an injured person generally starts with his or her own policy. North Carolina's liability minimums now stand at 50/100/50: a policy at the floor covers each injured person up to $50,000, all injuries in one crash up to $100,000 and property damage up to $50,000. Minimums can change over time, and what governs a claim is the coverage in force on the crash date.

N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1-52 sets three years for most North Carolina injury suits. A wrongful death action, the lawsuit over a death caused by someone else's wrongful conduct, faces a shorter limit, two years after the date of death (N.C.G.S. § 1-53(4)). Tennessee, for comparison, generally allows one year for injury claims. Claims touching a government vehicle or public road can follow separate procedures, and Superior Court is the usual venue for North Carolina injury lawsuits.

Greensboro's 2023 record is defined by crashes involving pedestrians and other non-motorists, crashes after dark and crashes away from intersections, and North Carolina law puts the injured person's own conduct at the center: contributory negligence, three years for most injury suits, two years for wrongful death and minimum limits set by the policy in force at the time. Early on, two questions matter most: what the evidence says about everyone's conduct, and which policies could pay. Most personal injury attorneys work on contingency; it is worth asking how the percentage is calculated and how case costs are handled.

For North Carolina readers, Ask Legal Matters offers a free claim-review request service; it is a lead-generation service, not a law firm. Requests may be shared with independent attorneys and legal services partners who handle inquiries in North Carolina. Whether a claim exists at all, and how the contributory negligence rule would treat it, depends on an attorney's evaluation of the facts. If a Greensboro crash hurt you or killed someone in your family, you can request a free claim review.

• Greensboro, North Carolina: local injury guide, court and deadlines
• Car Accident Claims in the United States: The Complete Guide
• Pedestrian Accident Claims: Rights, Fault and Compensation
• Wrongful Death Claims: Who Can File, Deadlines and Damages
• Car Accidents in Charlotte: 2023 Data and How a Claim Works
• Car Accidents in Fayetteville, NC: 2023 Data and Claim Rules
• Car Accidents in Winston-Salem: 2023 Data and How a Claim Works
• US Cities With the Most Fatal Car Accidents in 2023 (NHTSA Data)
• Car Accidents in Miami Gardens: 2023 Deaths and Florida Claims
• Hit by a Drunk Driver: Why the Claim Is Different, and Who Pays

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