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

From 2020 through 2024, federal crash records list 56 fatal crashes inside Pasadena, in which 60 people died. The roads with the most were Spencer Hwy with 10 fatal crashes, Pasadena Fwy (State Route 225) with 7 and Red Bluff Rd with 5.

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

The Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's census of crashes on public roads in which someone died, records 56 fatal crashes in Pasadena, Texas, from 2020 through 2024 and 60 deaths. These figures are for the Harris County city. NHTSA's Final Files supply 2020 to 2023, and the 2024 numbers are from its Annual Report File, a first release for that year that may be revised.

Pasadena's count held steady for three years, dropped sharply and then climbed back. There were 12 fatal crashes in 2020, 12 in 2021 and 13 in 2022, then 6 in 2023 and 13 again in 2024. Deaths went 12, 12, 14, 7 and 15, so the 2024 first release carries the highest death toll of the five years. In each of the last three years, at least one crash killed more than one person.

All 56 crashes were in Harris County, which recorded 2,580 fatal crashes and 2,746 deaths over the five years, so Pasadena holds 2 percent of each. Statewide, FARS lists 19,209 fatal crashes and 21,238 deaths. Among the Texas places in our guides, Pasadena's 60 deaths are tied for 25th, a rank three places share, so 24 recorded more; the five highest were Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Fort Worth and Austin, with 1,582, 1,112, 917, 588 and 525 deaths.

Spencer Hwy has the most fatal crashes in Pasadena's table: 10 from 2020 through 2024, 18 percent of the city's total, with 10 deaths and the latest in 2024. That is 3 more than Pasadena Fwy (State Route 225), which had 7 crashes and 7 deaths, also most recently in 2024. Between them, the two rows account for 17 of the 56 crashes, 30 percent.

Two rows tie for third with 5 fatal crashes and 6 deaths each: Red Bluff Rd, whose latest was in 2024, and State Route 225 (street name not recorded), whose latest was in 2022. Preston Ave and Fairmont Pkwy had 3 crashes and 3 deaths each, Preston Ave with one in 2024 and Fairmont Pkwy with its latest in 2021. Allen Genoa Rd, with a crash in 2024, and State Route 8, the latest in 2023, had 2 crashes that killed 3 people each, and Southmore Ave and Space Center Blvd had 2 crashes and 2 deaths each.

The ten rows in the table hold 41 of the 56 fatal crashes, 73 percent, and 45 of the 60 deaths; the other 15 crashes happened on other roads. Six of the ten had a fatal crash in 2024. Each count records where people died. It does not rate a road's safety, and it does not say who caused any crash, which turns on that crash's own report, witnesses and video.

By six-hour block, the afternoon had the most fatal crashes in Pasadena. The hours from noon to 6 p.m. had 19, 34 percent, followed by 16 between 6 p.m. and midnight, 13 between midnight and 6 a.m. and 8 between 6 a.m. and noon. Even so, 30 crashes, 54 percent, happened after dark, and more of those were on unlit roads, 18, than on lighted ones, 12. Daylight accounted for 23, dusk for 2 and another light condition for 1.

Intersections figure heavily. Twenty-one crashes, 38 percent, were at or related to an intersection, exactly as many as the 21 away from any junction, and 4 more happened elsewhere within an interchange area. Of the 26 crashes that began with a collision between motor vehicles in transport, meaning vehicles moving or stopped in the roadway, 14 were angle crashes, in which one vehicle strikes the side of another, 6 were rear-end and 4 head-on.

Saturday had 10 fatal crashes and Monday 9, but no day stood far apart from the others, and Tuesday had the fewest, 6. The weather was clear for 39 crashes, cloudy for 14 and rainy for 3. Half of the crashes, 28, involved a single vehicle, while 23 involved two and 5 involved three or more. FARS coded all 56 as urban, and none happened in a work zone.

Pedestrians are a large share of Pasadena's deaths: 16 of the 60 people killed, 27 percent, were on foot, and in 16 crashes the first harmful event, the first event that caused injury or damage, was a pedestrian being struck. Two bicyclists and 1 person on a personal conveyance, a FARS category separate from walking and cycling, also died. In all, 19 of the 56 crashes, 34 percent, involved a pedestrian, cyclist or other person outside a vehicle.

Drivers made up 32 of the dead and passengers 9, a total of 41 people killed in or on vehicles in transport. Seven of the dead, 12 percent of all deaths, were on a motorcycle or moped, and FARS counts them within those driver and passenger figures. With 14 of the collisions between vehicles coded as angle crashes, the question in many drivers' claims is who had the signal or the right of way, and for a pedestrian, whether the driver could have seen the person in time.

This example is hypothetical, and the round numbers only show how Texas rules apply. Suppose you are crossing at a signalized Pasadena intersection at 3 p.m. when a driver turning right strikes you in the crosswalk. You break a leg and a shoulder. Your medical bills come to $50,000 and your lost pay to $10,000, and your pain and suffering is valued at $40,000, for $100,000 in all. The driver's insurer says you started across after the walk signal had changed and assigns you 30 percent of the fault.

Texas's modified comparative negligence rule, with its 51 percent bar, lets you recover as long as your share of the fault is not more than 50 percent, and it cuts the award by that share. At 30 percent, the $100,000 becomes $70,000. Signal timing records, video from a nearby business and witnesses could move that figure, and at 51 percent you would recover nothing, so the few seconds before the driver turned can decide the whole claim.

The claim runs against the driver's liability insurer, since Texas is an at-fault state. Texas requires at least 30/60/25 in liability coverage, meaning $30,000 for one injured person, $60,000 for all injuries in a crash and $25,000 for property damage. A driver carrying only the minimum would leave $40,000 of your $70,000 beyond that policy, and whether any other coverage applies is something an attorney would look into. The general deadline to sue would be two years from the date of injury.

In Texas the driver's duty is to report the crash, not to file paperwork. Tex. Transp. Code § 550.026 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 of communication; in Pasadena, as in any Texas city, that means the local police. The officer then files the crash report (CR-3) with TxDOT within 10 days; TxDOT no longer takes the driver's report (CR-2) after September 1, 2017.

• Ask which agency is handling the crash and note its report number; TxDOT's Crash Report Online Purchase System sells copies of the CR-3.
• At an intersection, note which signal was showing and photograph the crosswalk, the signals and the turn lanes; 21 of Pasadena's fatal crashes were at or related to an intersection.
• A pedestrian should keep the shoes and clothing worn in the crash and write down when the crossing began.
• Shops or offices facing the scene may have cameras; ask them early to preserve the footage.
• Get medical care the same day and keep the bills, records and proof of missed work.

A lawsuit over a crash in Pasadena would typically go to the Harris County District Court, though the facts of a case can make another court proper, and an attorney decides which. In Texas the general deadline is two years from the date of injury (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003). When a crash is fatal, the family's wrongful death claim generally has two years from the date of death (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(b)).

Public vehicles add a step of their own. When a city vehicle or a public employee on duty may be responsible, the claim must reach the government body within its own deadline, which is 6 months, and some city charters are shorter (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 101.101). The period for any lawsuit that follows is set separately by state law. For an injured child, the two-year clock generally pauses until the child turns 18, so a child's deadline can fall later than an adult's.

The crosswalk example comes out as it does because of the Texas fault rule: at 30 percent, the pedestrian keeps 70 percent of the damages. Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia use contributory negligence, which can generally bar an injured person found even slightly at fault, so the same pedestrian could be left with nothing there. States with pure comparative negligence go the other way, reducing an award without any cutoff at 50 percent.

Insurance rules differ, too. In the no-fault states of Florida, Michigan, New York and New Jersey, a person hurt in a crash generally turns first to his or her own policy, which pays certain losses whoever caused the crash. In Texas, an at-fault state, the pedestrian's claim against the turning driver runs against that driver's liability coverage. Time limits are not uniform either, since Tennessee sets one year for most injury claims, so a deadline learned in one state is not a safe guide to a crash in Pasadena.

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 crash in Pasadena, Texas, on foot or in a vehicle, you can request a free case review.

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More on this type of claim: Car accidents: evidence, deadlines and when to ask an attorney.

• Pasadena, Texas: local injury guide, court and deadlines
• Car Accident Claims in the United States: The Complete Guide
• Pedestrian Accident Claims: Rights, Fault and Compensation

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