Interstate 85 is the spine of the Upstate, and it is also the roadway most likely to put you in a wreck. Greenville and Spartanburg counties tied for the most fatal collisions of any county in South Carolina in 2023, and I-85 led both counties' crash totals by a wide margin.1 West of there, in the mountains around Asheville, the danger looks different. Steep grades and a notoriously snarled freeway interchange define the terrain, and Buncombe County's traffic deaths jumped sharply in a single year.2 None of this is abstract if you are the one standing on the shoulder of I-85 waiting on a tow truck, or stuck at Patton Avenue wondering how you got rear-ended again.
Statewide, South Carolina's traffic deaths actually fell in 2023, dropping to 1,047 from 1,093 the year before.1 Greenville and Spartanburg counties did not share in that improvement.
I-85 and US-25 carry Greenville County's worst crashes
Greenville County logged 16,640 total traffic collisions in 2023, more than any other county in South Carolina, and its 71 fatal collisions tied Spartanburg for the state's highest death toll that year.1 Seventy-five people died on Greenville County roads in 2023. US-25 was the single deadliest roadway in the county, with 1,196 crashes and 14 deaths, ahead of I-85 (1,127 crashes, 6 deaths), US-276 (996 crashes, 3 deaths), and US-29 (806 crashes, 4 deaths).1
The intersection of I-85 and S-492 saw 358 crashes on its own in 2023, more than any other intersection in the county, though none were fatal that year.1 Two intersections did turn deadly: I-85 at US-276, and S-183 at I-385, each recording one death.1 Driving too fast for conditions was the leading factor cited in the county's fatal collisions, followed by drivers failing to yield the right of way.1
Woodruff Road's long, slow fix
SC-146, known locally as Woodruff Road, ranked among Greenville County's five busiest roadways for total crashes in 2023, with 704 collisions and one death.1 The corridor's problems go back further than that. A 2017 road safety assessment prepared for the Greenville-Pickens Area Transportation Study found 2,325 crashes on the Woodruff Road corridor between 2010 and 2014 alone, most of them rear-end and angle collisions tied to vehicles turning on and off the main road.3
SCDOT has been working on it for years. A safety project near Roper Mountain Road and Verdae Boulevard, adding pedestrian signals, ADA-compliant ramps, and concrete medians, began construction in February 2024.4 A much larger fix, a five-lane limited-access parallel route running from Verdae Boulevard to Smith Hines Road, carries a $121 million price tag. Right-of-way acquisition started in spring 2023, and construction is not expected to begin until 2027.5
Spartanburg County: I-85 and a climbing death rate
Spartanburg County's 71 fatal collisions in 2023 matched Greenville's, and its motor vehicle death rate jumped from 17.1 to 23.5 deaths per 100,000 residents in a single year.1 Eighty-four people died on Spartanburg County roads in 2023, and the estimated economic loss from all collisions rose to nearly $405 million, up almost $59 million from the year before.1 Preliminary 2026 numbers suggest the county is still struggling: through late July, Spartanburg County had already recorded 42 traffic deaths for the year, compared with 28 in Greenville County over the same stretch.6
I-85 dominates Spartanburg's crash data even more than it does Greenville's, with 1,311 crashes and 6 deaths in 2023, more than double the next-worst roadway, US-29 (985 crashes, 6 deaths).1 The interchange at I-85 and SC-290 was the county's single most crash-prone location, with 175 collisions, followed by S-57 at I-85 (164 collisions) and I-85 at SC-101, which recorded a death.1 Unlike Greenville, where speed topped the list of fatal-crash factors, Spartanburg's leading cause was drivers failing to yield the right of way, cited in 13 of the county's fatal collisions.1
Mountains, mergers, and a 37-year fix in Buncombe County
Buncombe County's numbers moved in the wrong direction in 2023. Traffic deaths jumped from 34 to 44, a 29 percent increase in a single year, out of 7,902 total crashes on county roads.2 Statewide, North Carolina saw the opposite trend, with traffic deaths falling 5.5 percent to 1,686 in 2023, even though speeding was still tied to 23.1 percent of them.2
Much of Asheville's driving frustration centers on one interchange: the merge point of I-26, I-40, and I-240 in west Asheville, long known to locals as a bottleneck where drivers switching highways have to cross several lanes of high-speed traffic in a short distance. NCDOT is in the middle of fixing it. The $1.8 billion I-26 Connector, a seven-mile freeway linking I-26 in southwest Asheville to US-19/23/70 in the northwest, broke ground after 37 years of delay since state lawmakers first approved the project in 1989; the original 1997 cost estimate was just $87.4 million.7 8 Part of the redesign will route interstate traffic off the Captain Jeff Bowen Bridge, which currently carries both local and through traffic, and onto a new flyover bridge over Patton Avenue. Construction is expected to run through 2031.7 8
Patton Avenue, Merrimon Avenue, and the fixes that work
Away from the interstates, Patton Avenue, which doubles as US-19, US-23, and US-74A, is Asheville's most consistently dangerous surface street. NCDOT data show more than 140 crashes at Patton Avenue and New Leicester Highway alone between 2020 and 2024, and the corridor's intersections with Tunnel Road and Hendersonville Road show up regularly in the city's crash data too.9
Merrimon Avenue has its own history. NCDOT figures show the road logged 50 percent more crashes over a decade than comparable roads elsewhere in the state, which is part of why the city converted a stretch between W.T. Weaver Boulevard and Midland Road from four lanes to three between October 2022 and May 2024. Average annual crashes on that section fell from 82.4 before the conversion to 63.38 after.10
Smaller fixes are showing up in the county too. NCDOT recently converted two rural intersections, Old NC 20 at Jenkins Valley Road and Alexander Road at Bear Creek Road, to all-way stops, citing agency data showing that all-way stops cut total crashes by 55 percent and fatal or serious-injury crashes by 92 percent at high-risk locations.11
If you are hurt on one of these roads
Whether the wreck happened on I-85 in Spartanburg or in the merge lanes near Asheville's interstate interchange, the aftermath tends to follow the same pattern: a police report and an insurance call, plus more questions than answers about who pays for what. If you need help sorting out your options, the legal directory lists attorneys who handle car crash cases across South Carolina and North Carolina.
This is general information, not legal advice.
Sources
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South Carolina Traffic Collision Fact Book, 2023 Edition, South Carolina Department of Public Safety: https://scdps.sc.gov/sites/scdps/files/Documents/ohsjp/fact%20book/2023%20Fact%20Book.pdf
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North Carolina 2023 Traffic Crash Facts, NC Division of Motor Vehicles and NCDOT: https://connect.ncdot.gov/business/DMV/CrashFactsDocuments/2023%20Crash%20Facts.pdf
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SC-146 Road Safety Assessment, Greenville-Pickens Area Transportation Study: https://gpats.org/documents/SC-146-RSA-Final-9-1-17.pdf
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"Safety improvements to Woodruff Road to start Feb. 25," Greenville Journal: https://greenvillejournal.com/community/safety-improvements-to-woodruff-road-to-start-february-25/
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Woodruff Road Congestion Relief Project, South Carolina Department of Transportation: https://projects.scdot.org/projects/woodruffroad/
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Traffic Fatalities by County, South Carolina Department of Public Safety: https://scdps.sc.gov/fatalities
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Asheville I-26 Connector, North Carolina Department of Transportation: https://www.ncdot.gov/projects/asheville-i-26-connector/Pages/default.aspx
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"After 37 years of effort, and about $100 million spent so far, the I-26 Connector is finally underway," Asheville Watchdog: https://avlwatchdog.org/after-37-years-of-effort-and-about-100-million-spent-so-far-the-i-26-connector-is-finally-underway/
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"These Asheville roads see the most crashes," 828 News Now: https://828newsnow.com/news/228822-these-asheville-roads-see-the-most-crashes/
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Merrimon Avenue Transportation Study, City of Asheville: https://www.ashevillenc.gov/projects/merrimon-avenue-transportation-study/
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"NCDOT Installs New All-Way Stops in Buncombe County," North Carolina Department of Transportation: https://www.ncdot.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/2026/2026-01-08-buncombe-all-way-stops.aspx