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

From 2020 through 2024, federal crash records list 60 fatal crashes inside Waco, in which 63 people died. The roads with the most were Lake Shore Dr (FM 3051) with 7 fatal crashes, I-35 with 6 and State Route 6 with 5.

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

From 2020 through 2024, NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), the national record of traffic crashes in which someone died, lists 60 fatal crashes in Waco and 63 people killed in them. NHTSA's Final Files are the source for 2020 to 2023. The 2024 numbers come from the Annual Report File, the agency's first release for that year, and they may change once the 2024 Final File is published.

For four years the count held between 12 and 16 crashes: 15 in 2020, 16 in 2021, 12 in 2022 and 13 in 2023, with 16, 16, 13 and 14 deaths. The 2024 first release then shows only 4 fatal crashes and 4 deaths, far below any earlier year, and that figure may be revised. Deaths topped crashes in 2020, 2022 and 2023, so in each of those years at least one crash killed more than one person.

McLennan County recorded 159 fatal crashes and 167 deaths over the same five years, and Waco's share is 38 percent of each. Texas recorded 19,209 fatal crashes and 21,238 deaths. Among the Texas places in our guides, Waco's 63 deaths are tied for 23rd, a rank it shares with one other place, so 22 places recorded more; Houston with 1,582 deaths, Dallas with 1,112 and San Antonio with 917 had the highest totals.

Lake Shore Dr (FM 3051) tops Waco's road table, but only by one crash. Its 7 fatal crashes from 2020 through 2024 killed 8 people, the latest in 2024. I-35 is next with 6 crashes and 6 deaths, also most recently in 2024. State Route 6 had 5 crashes, the latest in 2023, and they killed 6 people, as many deaths as on I-35. No road in Waco stands far apart from the rest.

Herring Ave, with a crash in 2024, and 18th St (State Route 2), the latest in 2023, had 3 fatal crashes and 3 deaths each. Martin Luther King Jr Blvd had 2 crashes that killed 3 people, the latest in 2023. Four rows had 2 crashes and 2 deaths apiece: Franklin Ave (State Route 298), the latest in 2023; Valley Mills Dr (State Route 396) and Waco Dr (US-84), each with its latest in 2022; and Robinson Dr (US-77), its latest in 2021.

The ten rows hold 34 of Waco's 60 fatal crashes, 57 percent, and 37 of its 63 deaths. That leaves 26 crashes, 43 percent, on roads outside the table, so a crash on an unlisted street is not unusual here. The counts show where deaths happened, not which road is riskier per mile or who caused a crash; that comes from each crash's report, the scene and the witnesses.

Saturday dominates Waco's calendar. It had 17 of the 60 fatal crashes, 28 percent, nearly twice the 9 on Wednesday or on Sunday, while Monday and Thursday had 8 each, Friday 6 and Tuesday 3. By the clock, the hours from 6 p.m. to midnight had 21 crashes, noon to 6 p.m. had 16, midnight to 6 a.m. had 14 and the morning, 6 a.m. to noon, only 9.

After dark, 32 crashes happened, 53 percent: 18 on roads with lighting and 14 on roads without it. Daylight accounted for 27 and dusk for 1. The weather was clear for 45 crashes, cloudy for 12 and rainy for 3. FARS coded 58 of the crashes as urban and 2 as rural, and 3 happened in construction work zones. Twenty were at or related to an intersection, and 6 were at or related to a driveway.

Single-vehicle crashes were the largest group, 31 of the 60, against 21 with two vehicles and 8 with three or more. In 36 crashes the first harmful event, the first one that caused injury or damage, was not a collision with another motor vehicle in transport: a pedestrian was struck first in 10 and a cyclist in 3, and in 17 a vehicle first hit a fixed object, such as a curb (4), a tree (3), a traffic signal support (2) or a bridge rail (1). Of the 24 collisions between vehicles in transport, 15 were angle crashes, 6 head-on and 3 rear-end.

Passengers are a large part of Waco's toll: 15 of the 63 people killed, 24 percent, were passengers in or on vehicles in transport, half as many as the 30 drivers. One more vehicle occupant died whose role FARS lists as unknown, bringing the deaths in or on vehicles to 46. Thirteen people killed, 21 percent of all deaths, were on a motorcycle or moped; FARS counts them within the occupant figures, not on top of them.

Seventeen people died outside a vehicle: 12 pedestrians, 3 bicyclists and 2 people on personal conveyances, 1 of them motorized, categories FARS keeps separate from walking and cycling. People outside a vehicle were involved in 16 of the 60 crashes, 27 percent. For a passenger, the first questions are usually which driver was responsible, the one the passenger rode with or another, and how much insurance each one carried.

Every figure here is invented for illustration. Suppose you are a passenger in a friend's car on a Saturday night in Waco when the friend takes a curve too fast, leaves the road and hits a tree, a single-vehicle crash, the most common kind in the city's data. You break an arm and two ribs. Your medical bills and lost pay come to $45,000, and your pain and suffering is valued at $35,000, for $80,000 in all. A second passenger in the back seat has $50,000 in losses.

Texas is an at-fault state, so both passengers' claims run against the liability coverage of the driver who caused the crash, here your friend. Texas requires at least 30/60/25: $30,000 for any one injured person, $60,000 for all injuries in one crash and $25,000 for property damage. On a minimum policy, your $80,000 claim is capped at $30,000 and the second passenger's $50,000 claim at $30,000 too, which together use up the full $60,000 for the crash.

Fault can still enter the picture. Under Texas's modified comparative negligence rule (51% bar), you can recover as long as you were not more than 50 percent at fault, and your award is reduced by your share of fault. If an insurer argued that you shared the blame and 10 percent were assigned, your $80,000 would fall to $72,000, still above the policy limit. Whether any other coverage reaches the amounts above the limits is a question for an attorney.

When a collision injures or kills someone, or damages a vehicle so badly that it cannot be driven normally and safely, Texas makes reporting the driver's job, and it has to happen at once. Tex. Transp. Code § 550.026 requires the report immediately, by the quickest means of communication, and inside a city such as Waco it goes to the local police. Afterward the officer, not the driver, files the crash report (CR-3) with TxDOT within 10 days; TxDOT no longer takes the driver's own report (CR-2) after September 1, 2017.

• Get the report number and the name of the police agency that responded; copies of the CR-3 are sold through TxDOT's Crash Report Online Purchase System.
• If you were a passenger, collect the name, insurer and policy number of every driver involved, including the driver you rode with.
• After a single-vehicle crash, photograph the curve, the curb or tree that was struck and any marks on the road before they fade.
• Ask nearby homes and businesses about cameras, and ask quickly, before recordings are overwritten.
• Get medical care right away, and keep every bill, record and note of missed work.

A lawsuit over a Waco crash would typically be filed in the McLennan County District Court; an attorney can tell whether another court is proper for a particular case. The general deadline to sue for an injury in Texas is two years from the date of injury (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003). A family bringing a wrongful death claim generally has two years from the date of death (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(b)).

Three other rules can matter in Waco cases. If a city vehicle or another public vehicle was involved, the claim to that government body has its own deadline, 6 months, and some city charters are shorter (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 101.101); the period for suing afterward is set separately by state law. An injured child's two-year clock generally pauses until 18. And a crash on the job can bring in the Texas Division of Workers' Compensation, where the employer generally must be told within 30 days and the claim filed within one year.

The passenger example turns on Texas's insurance rules. Because Texas is an at-fault state, the claim against the friend runs against the friend's liability policy, and its limits shape what can be paid. In the no-fault states of Florida, Michigan, New York and New Jersey, an injured person's own policy pays certain losses first, regardless of who caused the crash. In those states, a pain-and-suffering claim against the friend would generally also depend on the injury meeting the state's tort threshold, which state law defines.

Fault rules vary as well. Texas cuts an award by the injured person's share and bars it above 50 percent, while Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia use contributory negligence, which can generally bar someone found even slightly at fault; there, the 10 percent share in the example could defeat the claim instead of trimming it. Deadlines are not uniform either: Tennessee gives one year for most injury claims, where Texas generally gives two.

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 of any crash before anyone can say whether a claim exists. If you were hurt in a crash in Waco, as a driver, a passenger or on foot, 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.

• Waco, 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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