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

From 2020 through 2024, federal crash records list 74 fatal crashes inside Plano, in which 79 people died. The roads with the most were Preston Rd (State Route 289) with 6 fatal crashes, President George Bush Tpke with 5 and US-75 with 5.

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

Every crash figure in this article comes from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Its Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) codes each fatal crash on a public road by place, time, conditions and the people involved, and for Plano the 2020 to 2024 files contain 74 fatal crashes in which 79 people died. NHTSA's Final Files cover 2020 through 2023. The 2024 data are from the Annual Report File, NHTSA's first release for that year, and may be revised.

After a dip, the yearly count climbed. Plano had 15 fatal crashes in 2020, then 11 in 2021, 13 in 2022, 17 in 2023 and 18 in 2024, its peak. Deaths were 19, 11, 13, 17 and 19. In 2020, 15 crashes killed 19 people, so at least one crash that year killed more than one person; from 2021 through 2023 every fatal crash killed exactly one, and in 2024, 18 crashes killed 19.

Collin County recorded 306 fatal crashes and 325 deaths in the same five years, and 24 percent of each were in Plano. Texas as a whole recorded 19,209 fatal crashes and 21,238 deaths. Among Texas cities in these records, 17 recorded more deaths than Plano's 79, led by Houston with 1,582, Dallas with 1,112, San Antonio with 917, Fort Worth with 588 and Austin with 525.

No single road dominates Plano's list. Preston Rd (State Route 289) is first with 6 fatal crashes and 6 deaths, the latest in 2023, but only by one crash: President George Bush Tpke and US-75 had 5 each, and on each of those roads the crashes killed 6 people, so the three tie on deaths. President George Bush Tpke had a fatal crash in 2024, while the latest on US-75 was in 2023.

Five roads had 4 fatal crashes each. On Spring Creek Pkwy those crashes killed 5 people; Dallas North Tollway, Legacy Dr and Parker Rd had 4 deaths each, and all four of these roads had a fatal crash in 2024. Jupiter Rd also had 4, its latest in 2023. Coit Rd, with a fatal crash in 2024, and Dallas Pkwy, latest 2023, had 3 each. Six of the ten roads in the table had a fatal crash in 2024.

The ten rows together hold 42 of the city's 74 fatal crashes, 57 percent, and 45 of its 79 deaths. With so many roads sharing similar counts, Plano's table is better read as a list of where fatal crashes happened than as a ranking of danger. A count is not a risk rate, since FARS does not measure traffic, and it does not show who caused any crash; in a claim, that comes from the officer's report, the vehicles, witnesses and video.

Sunday stands out. It had 20 of Plano's 74 fatal crashes, 27 percent, twice the 10 recorded on each of Saturday, Monday and Tuesday; Friday had 9, Thursday 8 and Wednesday 7. Evenings were the busiest part of the clock, with 35 crashes between 6 p.m. and midnight, 47 percent, and 16 more between midnight and 6 a.m.; noon to 6 p.m. had 12 and 6 a.m. to noon 11.

Forty-two crashes, 57 percent, happened after dark: 28 in darkness with lighting, 13 in darkness without it and 1 with the lighting unknown. Daylight accounted for 27, dawn for 3 and dusk for 2. Weather was clear for 56 crashes and cloudy for 17, with 1 coded as other weather. FARS coded 72 as urban and 2 as rural, and 2 happened in work zones, 1 of them a construction zone.

By location, 32 crashes were coded non-junction, away from intersections, driveways, ramps and other junctions, 24 were in an intersection and 3 were intersection-related. Five happened elsewhere within an interchange area, 4 were related to an entrance or exit ramp and 1 was on a ramp, with 3 related to a driveway and 2 on a through roadway. The first harmful event, meaning the first event in a crash that caused injury or damage, was a collision with another motor vehicle in transport in 31 crashes; in FARS, a vehicle in transport is one moving or stopped in the roadway.

Of those 31 collisions, 18 were angle crashes, 6 rear-end, 3 head-on and 2 same-direction sideswipes, with 1 coded other and 1 not reported. The other 43 crashes began some other way: a pedestrian was struck first in 13, a vehicle rolled over in 6, and a tree (5), a curb (4) or a concrete traffic barrier (3) was hit first in others. Counting barriers, guardrails and crash cushions together, 7 crashes began with a vehicle striking one. Thirty-five crashes involved a single vehicle, 28 two and 11 three or more.

Drivers account for most of Plano's deaths: 58 of the 79, or 73 percent. Passengers were 7, pedestrians 13 and bicyclists 1. Fourteen of the 74 fatal crashes, 19 percent, had a pedestrian, cyclist or other non-motorist involved, and 13 began with a pedestrian being struck. That leaves Plano's toll weighted toward drivers and passengers: 65 of the 79 deaths, 17 of them on a motorcycle or moped.

Seventeen of the people killed, 22 percent of all deaths, were on a motorcycle or moped; FARS counts riders among the drivers and passengers. A rider's claim often turns on whether the other driver saw the motorcycle and yielded. Angle collisions, where one vehicle crosses another's path, were the most common type of collision with another vehicle in transport in Plano, 18 of 31, and in that kind of crash, who had the right of way is often the main dispute.

This example is hypothetical, with round numbers chosen to show the rules. Suppose a motorcyclist riding through a Plano intersection on a Sunday evening is hit by a car turning left across his path. He breaks a leg and injures a shoulder, and his medical bills, lost wages and pain and suffering are valued at $120,000. The driver tells her insurer she never saw the motorcycle, and the insurer argues the rider was speeding and assigns him 40 percent of the fault.

Texas follows modified comparative negligence (51% bar): an injured person recovers as long as his share of fault is not more than 50 percent, and the award drops by that share. At 40 percent, $120,000 becomes $72,000. If video from a nearby business showed the rider near the speed limit and his share fell to 15 percent, the figure would be $102,000. If a jury instead put him at 55 percent, he would recover nothing from the driver.

Collecting is a separate step. Because Texas is an at-fault state, the claim goes to the turning driver's liability insurer, and Texas requires drivers to carry at least 30/60/25: $30,000 for each injured person, up to $60,000 for everyone hurt in the crash, and $25,000 for damaged property. A minimum policy caps that insurer's payment to the rider at $30,000, well short of $102,000; an attorney would look for any other coverage that could make up the difference.

In Texas the written crash report comes from the officer, not the driver. Drivers have not filed a report of their own, the CR-2, since TxDOT stopped taking it after September 1, 2017; instead the investigating officer files the CR-3 with TxDOT within 10 days. The driver's duty is to call it in: Tex. Transp. Code § 550.026 requires the driver in a collision that injures or kills anyone, or that damages a vehicle so it cannot be driven normally and safely, to report it immediately by the quickest means of communication, which inside a city such as Plano means the local police.

• Ask the officer for the report number and the agency's name; the CR-3 can later be bought through TxDOT's Crash Report Online Purchase System.
• After a motorcycle crash, keep the helmet, riding gear and damaged parts as they are; they help show where and how the rider was hit.
• Photograph the intersection, the signals, the turn lanes and where each vehicle stopped, if it is safe to do so.
• Ask nearby businesses for video before it is overwritten, and collect witnesses' names and numbers.
• Get medical care promptly and keep every bill, record and note of missed work.
• A crash during work can bring in workers' compensation: tell your employer within 30 days, and file any claim with the Texas Division of Workers' Compensation, generally within one year.

If a Plano crash claim becomes a lawsuit, it is generally filed in the Collin County District Court, unless the facts make another court proper, which an attorney decides. The general limit for an injury lawsuit in Texas is two years from the date of injury (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003); for a family's wrongful death claim, the two years generally run from the date of death (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(b)).

Two other rules matter here. A claim against a government body must be filed with it within 6 months, and some city charters set a shorter time (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 101.101). A child's claim gets more time, because the two-year period generally pauses until the child turns 18. Because the government claim deadline comes only months after a crash, it is worth asking early whether any public vehicle or employee was involved.

Fault rules change the arithmetic first. Texas's 51 percent bar let the rider in the example recover at 40 percent. In Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia, which use contributory negligence, a rider found even slightly at fault can generally recover nothing, so the same crash and the same evidence could leave him with no award at all. Where both sides made mistakes, the shared-fault rule can decide the claim.

Texas is an at-fault state, which is why the rider in the example looks to the turning driver's liability insurer. Florida, Michigan, New York and New Jersey instead run no-fault systems, in which an injured person's own policy pays certain losses first. Deadlines vary too: Tennessee allows one year for most injury claims, half of Texas's two years, so a rule learned elsewhere may not apply.

How fault is divided after a turning crash is a question for the evidence and an attorney. 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, and most personal injury attorneys work on contingency. If you were hurt in a Plano crash, on a motorcycle or in a car, 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.

• Plano, 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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