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

From 2020 through 2024, federal crash records list 91 fatal crashes inside Midland, in which 95 people died. The roads with the most were I-20 with 13 fatal crashes, State Route 191 with 7 and State Route 250 with 6.

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

From 2020 through 2024, the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) records 91 fatal crashes inside Midland in which 95 people died. FARS is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's nationwide file of fatal traffic crashes. Its 2020 to 2023 years are Final Files; 2024 comes from the Annual Report File, NHTSA's first release for that year, so the 2024 numbers may still be revised.

Midland's count climbed after 2020. The city had 11 fatal crashes and 12 deaths in 2020, 21 crashes and 21 deaths in 2021, and 23 crashes and 24 deaths in 2022, the most of the five years. In both 2023 and 2024 there were 18 fatal crashes, with 20 deaths in 2023 and 18 in 2024. Because the 91 crashes caused 95 deaths, most of them killed one person.

Midland County as a whole recorded 193 fatal crashes and 205 deaths over the five years, so the city accounts for 47 percent of the county's fatal crashes and 46 percent of its deaths. FARS coded 88 of the city's 91 fatal crashes as urban and 3 as rural. Midland's 95 deaths rank 13th among the 509 Texas places with fatal crashes in these records, a position it shares with two other places that also recorded 95.

I-20 leads Midland's list with 13 fatal crashes and 14 deaths, 14 percent of the city's fatal crashes; its most recent fatal crash in this data was in 2023. State Route 191 is second with 7 crashes and 7 deaths, and State Route 250 third with 6 crashes and 6 deaths, both with fatal crashes as recently as 2024. Together the three account for 26 of the 91 crashes.

After those three, no single road stands out. Five rows have 4 fatal crashes each: Florida Ave (State Route 140 / State Route 158), Lamesa Rd, State Route 349 (street name not recorded), Tradewinds Blvd and Loop (State Route 250). Front St had 3 crashes that killed 4 people, and Big Spring St (State Route 349C / State Route 349) had 3 crashes and 3 deaths. Six of the ten roads on the list had a fatal crash in 2024; the latest on Loop (State Route 250) was in 2022.

A road's total shows where fatal crashes were recorded, not why they happened: I-20's 13 crashes say nothing about who was at fault in any one of them. In a claim, fault turns on the evidence from that crash, starting with the officer's report, the positions of the vehicles and any video or witness accounts. The table on this page lists all ten rows with their deaths and the latest year of a fatal crash.

Night dominates Midland's record. Of the 91 fatal crashes, 64 happened after dark, 41 on lighted roads and 23 on roads with no lighting, and 27 in daylight. The late-night hours were as deadly as the evening: 30 crashes happened between midnight and 6 a.m. and 30 between 6 p.m. and midnight, compared with 17 between noon and 6 p.m. and 14 between 6 a.m. and noon.

The days with the most fatal crashes were Friday, with 17, and Thursday, with 15. Sunday had 14, Monday 13, Tuesday 12, Saturday 11 and Wednesday 9, so the weekend was not the peak in Midland. Weather was clear in 77 crashes and cloudy in 13, and 1 happened in fog, smog or smoke. Eight crashes happened in a work zone, 7 of them in a construction zone.

Single-vehicle crashes were the most common pattern: 50 of the 91 involved one vehicle, 37 involved two and only 4 involved three or more. In 55 crashes the first harmful event was not a collision with another vehicle in traffic, most often a pedestrian being struck (21) or a rollover (6). Among collisions between vehicles, rear-end and angle crashes tied at 12 each, and 10 were head-on. By location, 45 crashes happened away from any junction and 30 at or related to an intersection.

Of the 95 people killed in Midland, 58 were drivers and 12 were passengers. Of those 70 vehicle occupants, 18 were on a motorcycle or moped, so motorcyclists made up 19 percent of all deaths in the city. In motorcycle crashes, insurers commonly question the rider's speed, lane position and visibility, which makes early evidence especially important for riders and their families.

Pedestrians were 22 of the dead, 23 percent of the total, along with 1 bicyclist and 2 people on personal conveyances, a FARS category separate from walking and cycling. In all, 25 of the 91 crashes involved a pedestrian, cyclist or other person outside a vehicle. For the family of anyone killed, Texas's wrongful death deadline generally runs two years from the date of death (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(b)).

This example is hypothetical. Suppose a motorcyclist is riding through a Midland intersection after dark when a driver turns left across his path. His medical bills come to $60,000 and his lost pay to $20,000, $80,000 in total. The driver's insurer accepts that its driver failed to yield but claims the rider was speeding, and it puts his share of the fault at 50 percent.

Texas uses modified comparative negligence with a 51 percent bar: an injured person who is not more than 50 percent at fault can recover, but the award is reduced by that percentage. At exactly 50 percent the rider still recovers half, $40,000. At 51 percent he recovers nothing, so a single percentage point separates $40,000 from zero. That is why evidence of the rider's speed, from skid marks, video or the vehicles' electronic data, can matter more than anything else in the claim.

If that evidence showed the rider was not speeding and his share fell to 10 percent, the award would be $72,000, or $32,000 more. The claim would run against the other driver's liability insurance, since Texas is an at-fault state. Every figure here is hypothetical; how fault is assigned in a real crash depends on its own facts, which an attorney must evaluate.

In Texas the reporting duty belongs to the driver, but the paperwork belongs to the officer. Section 550.026 of the Texas Transportation Code requires the driver in a collision that injures or kills anyone, or damages a vehicle so that it cannot be driven normally and safely, to report it immediately by the quickest means; inside a city, that means the local police. TxDOT no longer takes the driver's report (CR-2) after September 1, 2017, and the officer files the CR-3 crash report with TxDOT within 10 days.

• If anyone is hurt, call 911 and ask for police at the scene; before leaving, get the report number and the name of the agency that took the report.
• After a motorcycle crash, keep the helmet, riding gear and any camera footage, and photograph the bike before it is repaired or sold.
• Photograph the intersection, the signals and where each vehicle came to rest; 30 of Midland's fatal crashes were at or related to an intersection.
• Get the other driver's name, insurer and policy number; Texas requires liability coverage of at least 30/60/25.
• When the CR-3 is ready, order it from TxDOT's Crash Report Online Purchase System; it is the officer's account of the crash.
• Hurt while working? Texas generally requires notice to your employer within 30 days for workers' compensation.

Lawsuits over crashes in Midland are typically filed in the Midland County District Court, though a case can belong in a different county or in federal court. The general deadline is two years from the date of injury (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003). A claim still being negotiated as that date approaches generally needs a lawsuit filed to stay alive, and preparing one takes time, so the date is worth checking with an attorney well before the second year ends.

Other Texas clocks can apply. If a city, county or state vehicle or employee was involved, the claim against that government body runs on a far shorter schedule: 6 months, and some city charters are shorter (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 101.101). A crash on the job can bring in workers' compensation, handled by the Texas Division of Workers' Compensation, with notice to the employer generally due within 30 days and a claim due within one year.

The 50 percent line in the example is a Texas rule, not a national one. Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia use contributory negligence, which generally bars an injured person who was even slightly at fault; there, the rider in the example could lose the claim at 10 percent, let alone 50. Texas lets him recover until his share passes 50 percent, reduced by that share.

Deadlines and insurance systems change the answer as well. Tennessee has a one-year deadline for most injury claims, while Texas generally allows two. Florida, Michigan, New York and New Jersey are no-fault states, where an injured person's own policy pays certain losses first regardless of fault; Texas is an at-fault state, where the claim runs against the liability insurance of the driver who caused the crash.

For a Midland rider, driver or pedestrian, only the evidence of a particular crash shows who is responsible. 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. Most personal injury attorneys work on contingency, and an attorney must evaluate the facts before anyone can say whether a claim exists. If a Midland crash left you or a family member hurt, 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.

• Midland, 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

Need local rules? Choose your state from the injury law guides hub or read the statute of limitations by state.