Car Accidents in Houston: 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 Houston account for 297 deaths in 279 fatal crashes, behind only Los Angeles and Phoenix nationally and ahead of Dallas by nearly 100 deaths. Harris County as a whole, including the unincorporated areas and suburbs, adds substantially to that.

Houston's pattern is the opposite of Phoenix's. Only 63 of its 279 fatal crashes were intersection-related, a 23 percent share and the lowest of any city in the national top ten. The crashes are on freeways and the frontage roads that run beside them, and they happen at night: 194 of 279 in dark conditions, a 70 percent share. The most common first harmful event by a wide margin, 201 crashes, was something other than a collision with another moving vehicle, meaning a pedestrian, a fixed object or a rollover.

Pedestrians and cyclists were involved in 119 fatal crashes, 43 percent, a high share for a city built around driving. Houston's freeway frontage roads, with high speeds and few protected crossings, are where many of those crashes occur. FARS counts fatal crashes only; injury crashes on the same roads are many times more numerous.

FARS roadway coding, as reported by Texas, identifies the corridors where fatal crashes concentrated in 2023. Interstates and their frontage roads dominate.

• I-10: 10 fatal crashes across the Katy and East freeways.
• I-45 / North Freeway: 10 fatal crashes on the northern section, with a further 9 coded to I-45 generally, which includes the Gulf Freeway.
• I-45 frontage roads: 7 fatal crashes on the feeder roads beside the freeway.
• FM 1093 / Westheimer Road: 7 fatal crashes on the long east-west arterial.
• Martin Luther King Boulevard: 7 fatal crashes in southeast Houston.
• Across all coding, I-45 and its frontage roads together account for 26 fatal crashes, more than any other corridor in the city.

A fatal or serious crash on a Houston freeway at night usually involves speed, and often involves a single vehicle leaving the road or striking a pedestrian who was crossing or stranded. Fault in a multi-vehicle freeway crash is argued around lane changes, following distance and speed, and the physical evidence, event data recorders in the vehicles, and camera footage from Houston TranStar's freeway cameras are what resolve it.

Frontage roads add a specific pattern: vehicles exiting the freeway at speed onto a feeder where cross traffic, driveways and pedestrians are present. Texas law gives frontage road traffic the right of way over vehicles entering from side streets and driveways in most configurations, which matters in assigning fault.

Texas's 51 percent bar means a driver found 50 percent at fault still recovers half; one found 51 percent at fault recovers nothing. In a two-car freeway crash where each driver blames the other, the difference between 50 and 51 is the entire claim, which is why the event data and camera evidence are gathered first.

Suppose you were driving on the I-45 frontage road at night when a driver exiting the freeway failed to yield and struck your car. You suffered a fractured pelvis and a concussion, with $96,000 in medical bills and five months off work. The other driver's insurer argued you were speeding on the frontage road and assigned you 40 percent of the fault.

Under Texas's modified comparative rule, 40 percent reduces the recovery but does not bar it. The exiting driver's duty to yield to frontage road traffic, confirmed by the police report and a TranStar camera, kept the fault allocation in your favor after negotiation. The other driver carried Texas's minimum $30,000 per person limit, far below the medical bills, so your own underinsured motorist coverage was the main source of recovery, with your health insurer asserting a lien on the settlement for what it had paid.

The claim settled at month twenty, inside the two-year deadline, after a lawsuit was filed in Harris County District Court at month fourteen to move the underinsured carrier. If the crash had been on a county or state road and a design defect contributed, a notice to the governmental unit within six months under the Texas Tort Claims Act would have been required. All figures are hypothetical.

Houston's freeway crashes produce evidence that is time-sensitive and spread across agencies.

• Get the Houston Police Department or Harris County Sheriff's Office report number; Texas crash reports are available through the Texas Department of Transportation's crash report system.
• Ask an attorney to send preservation letters for Houston TranStar and any business camera footage within days; freeway camera footage is retained briefly.
• Preserve both vehicles' event data recorders by asking that the cars not be scrapped until downloaded.
• Photograph the scene, lighting and lane markings; night crashes bring visibility arguments.
• 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; Houston insurers raise treatment gaps as routinely as anywhere.
• If a government road or signal is implicated, note the six-month Texas Tort Claims Act notice period.

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

Fault follows modified comparative negligence with a 51 percent bar under the Texas 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 Houston, Harris County, METRO or the Texas Department of Transportation fall under the Texas Tort Claims Act, which limits what can be recovered and requires notice within six months, or sooner under some city charters.

Crashes in the surrounding cities, Pasadena, Sugar Land, The Woodlands and Baytown, follow the same Texas rules. Workers' compensation for a crash on the job runs through the Texas Division of Workers' Compensation with a one-year claim deadline, though Texas allows employers to opt out of the system, in which case an injured employee may sue the employer directly.

A Houston claim is often a freeway claim with disputed fault, a minimum-limits driver and evidence held by agencies that will not keep it long. The questions to answer early are what the cameras and event data show, what coverage exists on both sides, and whether the fault evidence keeps you at or below 50 percent. 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 Houston or Harris County, you can request a free claim review.

• 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
• At Fault in a Car Accident? Comparative Negligence Explained
• What Is the Average Car Accident Settlement? What Sets the Value
• Back and Neck Injury Settlement After a Car Accident: Factors
• Bicycle Accident Claim: Hit by a Car While Riding
• Can I Sue for a Slip and Fall? Premises Liability Explained
• Can I Sue My Employer for a Work Injury? Workers' Comp vs Lawsuit

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