If you were just in a wreck on a Houston freeway or stuck at a jammed intersection waiting for the police, you are handling a lot at once. This page pulls together the local crash numbers and the Texas rules that decide what happens next, with a look at the specific Houston roads where wrecks concentrate. Everything here comes from state and city records rather than guesswork, and the source for each figure is linked at the bottom.
How often crashes happen around Houston
Harris County, which covers most of the Houston metro, recorded 115,173 reportable crashes in 2024. That is close to one in five of every crash in the state.1 The county also logged 546 fatal crashes and 579 traffic deaths, more than any other county in Texas, ahead of Dallas and Tarrant.1 Set against the statewide toll of 4,150 deaths, Harris County alone accounts for roughly one in seven traffic fatalities in Texas.2
Serious injuries follow the same pattern. TxDOT counted 2,282 crashes in Harris County that left someone with a suspected serious injury, and 2,688 people hurt that badly in a single year.1
Statewide, the picture is stark. Texas recorded 4,150 traffic deaths in 2024, down about 3% from the year before, at a rate of 1.35 deaths for every 100 million miles driven.2 Broken down another way, one person was killed on Texas roads every 2 hours and 7 minutes, and a reportable crash happened every 57 seconds.2 Intersections account for a large share of the harm: 1,050 of those deaths happened in crashes at or related to an intersection, and 1,053 involved a driver who had been drinking.2 October was the deadliest month of the year, with 391 people killed.2 Every one of these counts comes from the CR-3 forms officers file after a wreck.2
Where Houston crashes cluster
Houston has mapped its own danger. Through its Vision Zero program, the city found that about 6% of its streets account for 60% of the crashes that end in a serious injury or a death, a set of roads it calls the High Injury Network.3 The program's stated goal is to end traffic deaths and serious injuries in the city by 2030.4
Rebuilding those corridors has moved the numbers. After the city redesigned Bagby Street between Clay and Franklin downtown, injury crashes there fell 75%.4 On Gray Street from Bagby to Hamilton they dropped 34%, and on Hillcroft Avenue between High Star and Westward they fell 27%.4 Across all of its improved corridors, the city reports injury crashes down 26%.4 People on foot stay especially exposed; statewide, 768 pedestrians were killed in 2024.2
The metro's largest road project sits on one of its busiest corridors. TxDOT's North Houston Highway Improvement Project is a $7.9 billion rebuild of Interstate 45, running in three segments from US 59 north to Beltway 8.5 Part of the plan reroutes I-45 from the west side of downtown so it runs alongside I-10 and US 59/I-69.5 The work means shifting lanes and long closures on the core freeways for years, so conditions on those routes keep changing.
What to do right after a crash in Houston
Texas law requires the driver of a vehicle in a crash that injures or kills someone, or that leaves a car too damaged to drive safely, to notify police immediately by the quickest means available.6 Inside the city that is the Houston Police Department. At the scene, exchange names and insurance information with the other driver. The officer who works the crash files the state's report, the CR-3, whenever a wreck causes injury, death, or at least $1,000 in property damage.7
Get a copy of that report. Officers have up to 10 days to file it, so it may take a while to appear.7 Once it is in the system, you can buy a copy through TxDOT's Crash Report Online Purchase System for $6, or $8 for a certified copy, and it arrives by email.8 The CR-3 lists the other driver's insurance and the investigating officer's account of what happened, which carries weight when you deal with an adjuster.
The Texas rules that shape your claim
You have two years to sue. Section 16.003 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code says a person must bring suit for personal injury "not later than two years after the day the cause of action accrues," and the same two-year limit applies to a wrongful death claim.9 Miss that deadline and a court can dismiss the case no matter how strong it was. A few narrow exceptions can pause the clock, so confirm your own date early instead of assuming.
Fault is measured in percentages. Under the state's proportionate responsibility rule, you can still recover money if you were partly at fault, but only when your share is 50% or less; a claimant found more than 50% responsible recovers nothing.10 Whatever percentage of fault lands on you then reduces your recovery by the same amount.
Insurance sets the floor on what is available to pay a claim. Texas requires drivers to carry at least $30,000 of bodily injury coverage per person, $60,000 per crash, and $25,000 for property damage, a set of limits the state writes as 30/60/25.11 The Texas Department of Insurance notes these are legal minimums and can fall short in a serious multi-vehicle wreck.11
Finding help
Handling medical bills and an insurance adjuster while you are hurt is hard, and the stakes rise when injuries are severe or fault is contested. If you are in that spot, it helps to talk with a lawyer who handles Texas crash cases; you can start with the legal directory. For the raw figures on your own area, our crash data reports draw from the same official open data cited here.
This page is general information, not legal advice.
Sources
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Texas Department of Transportation, "Crashes and Injuries by County 2024," Texas Motor Vehicle Traffic Crash Facts. https://www.txdot.gov/content/dam/docs/division/trf/crash-records/2024/13.pdf
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Texas Department of Transportation, "Texas Motor Vehicle Traffic Crash Facts, Calendar Year 2024." https://www.txdot.gov/content/dam/docs/division/trf/crash-records/2024/01.pdf
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Kinder Institute for Urban Research, Rice University, "To achieve Vision Zero, Houston must shift the way it thinks about transportation." https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/achieve-vision-zero-houston-transportation
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City of Houston Planning and Development Department, Vision Zero update, press release dated August 9, 2023. https://www.houstontx.gov/planning/pressrelease-20230809.html
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Texas Department of Transportation, "North Houston Highway Improvement Project (NHHIP)." https://www.txdot.gov/nhhip.html
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Texas Transportation Code Section 550.026, Immediate Report of Collision. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/TN/htm/TN.550.htm
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Texas Transportation Code Section 550.062, Officer's Crash Report. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/TN/htm/TN.550.htm
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Texas Department of Transportation, Crash Report Online Purchase System (CRIS). https://cris.txdot.gov/public/Purchase
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Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.003, Two-Year Limitations Period. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CP/htm/CP.16.htm
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Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 33.001, Proportionate Responsibility. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CP/htm/CP.33.htm
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Texas Department of Insurance, "Automobile insurance guide." https://www.tdi.texas.gov/pubs/consumer/cb020.html