If you drive around Norfolk, Portsmouth, Newport News, Virginia Beach, Hampton, Chesapeake, or Suffolk, the roads that make your stomach tighten are probably already familiar. Virginia recorded 129,244 crashes and 918 traffic deaths in 2024, a 1.2% increase over 2023, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles' annual crash report1. Hampton Roads accounted for roughly 27,000 of those crashes and 160 of the deaths, with almost 10,000 people injured region-wide2. A short list of interchanges, boulevards, and one notorious curve accounts for a disproportionate share of that damage.
What the numbers say
The DMV's 2024 Traffic Crash Facts report breaks the state numbers down further: 410 deaths involved speed, 318 involved alcohol, and 322 involved someone who wasn't wearing a seatbelt, all higher than in 20231. Pedestrian deaths fell slightly to 126, but bicyclist deaths jumped 66.7%, to 251.
City by city, Virginia Beach logged 5,272 crashes and 24 deaths in 2024, Norfolk 4,785 crashes and 20 deaths, Hampton 3,590 crashes and 13 deaths, Newport News 3,463 crashes and 19 deaths, Chesapeake 2,459 crashes and 19 deaths, Suffolk 1,707 crashes and 14 deaths, and Portsmouth 1,078 crashes and 6 deaths1. Measured against each city's licensed drivers instead of raw totals, Suffolk (0.20 deaths per 1,000 drivers) and Newport News (0.17) post the highest death rates of the seven, ahead of Norfolk, Hampton, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, and Virginia Beach, in that order1. A separate ranking of 2023 deaths per resident put Hampton at the top of the region, at 1.53 traffic deaths per 10,000 people2.
Hampton's repeat-offender intersections
Nobody in the region needs to guess where the crashes cluster. Keith Nichols, principal transportation engineer for the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization, compiles an annual ranking from VDOT and DMV crash data, and the same corridor keeps showing up at the top3. In 2024, Mercury Boulevard at Power Plant Parkway in Hampton logged 54 crashes, the most of any intersection in the region, an improvement from 79 crashes there in 2023 and 267 crashes counted at that same intersection between 2017 and 20214. Two more Hampton locations round out the top of the list: Armistead Avenue at LaSalle Avenue, with 35 crashes, and Coliseum Drive at Mercury Boulevard, tied for third with 343. By Nichols' count, five of the region's ten most crash-prone intersections sit on Mercury Boulevard alone4.
Nichols is blunt about the underlying cause: "One of the biggest things is personal responsibility, making sure we drive slower. Over half of the people killed in our region, unfortunately, were speeding in the crash," Nichols told WAVY3.
Newport News' Jefferson Avenue problem
Newport News' worst crash locations sit almost entirely on one street. Jefferson Avenue at Oyster Point Road tied for third regionally in 2024 with 34 crashes, and Jefferson Avenue at Walmart Way/Brick Kiln Boulevard added another 323. A few miles south, Roanoke Avenue at 48th Street posted the highest crash rate of any location in the region in 2023, per the same HRTPO analysis4.
Virginia Beach, Norfolk, and the interstates
Virginia Beach's crash problem concentrates on I-264. DMV's crash-cluster data ranked I-264 at Independence Boulevard as the single highest-crash location anywhere in Hampton Roads in 2023, with 94 crashes and 5 serious injuries, followed by I-264 at Witchduck Road, also in Virginia Beach, with 74 crashes4. By 2024, the intersection drawing the most attention in the city was Independence Boulevard at South Boulevard/Baxter Road, with 23 crashes3. Virginia Beach adopted its first Local Road Safety Action Plan on November 19, 2024, folding crash-reduction targets into the city's comprehensive plan5.
Norfolk and Hampton share a different kind of danger: the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, where I-64 carries more than three million vehicles a month across the harbor and ranks among the most congested corridors in the region6. VDOT is roughly a year from finishing a $3.9 billion expansion, its largest highway project ever, widening the corridor from four lanes to six on land and eight under the harbor through twin tunnels7. Substantial completion is targeted for February 20276.
Portsmouth's S-curve
The single worst non-intersection stretch of road in Hampton Roads, measured by fatality and serious-injury rate, is the Martin Luther King Jr. Freeway in Portsmouth, in both directions between High Street and London Boulevard, where a sharp S-curve produces more serious injuries and deaths than any comparable segment in the region4. That stretch of freeway is still relatively new: its southern leg into I-264, including the High Street interchange, only opened in March 2017, as part of a $2.1 billion public-private partnership between VDOT and Elizabeth River Crossings8.
Suffolk, Chesapeake, and the roads without a spotlight
Not every dangerous road makes a top-five list. In Suffolk, HRTPO's data identifies Copeland Road at Manning Road as the region's second-highest crash-rate location for fatal and serious-injury crashes between 2017 and 20214. Chesapeake, the region's third-largest city by crash count with 2,459 crashes and 19 deaths in 2024, doesn't appear on HRTPO's published top-ten list at all. That likely says more about how spread out its crashes are across a sprawling road network than about how safe its roads actually are1.
None of Hampton Roads' interstates carry VDOT's Highway Safety Corridor designation, reserved for roads that fail multiple safety benchmarks, including a crash rate at least 25% above the regional average, and paired with steeper penalties: up to $500 for traffic infractions and $2,500 for reckless driving9. Only three corridors statewide currently qualify: I-81 near Roanoke, I-95 in Northern Virginia, and I-95 near Richmond9. Whatever is driving the numbers on Mercury Boulevard, I-264, and the MLK Freeway hasn't triggered that particular regulatory response yet.
If you've been hurt in a crash at one of these locations, the crash report itself, and a lawyer who already understands the intersection's history, can matter more than you'd expect. You can find local personal injury attorneys through thatcarhitme.com's legal directory.
This article provides general information, not legal advice.
Sources
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Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, Virginia Highway Safety Office, "2024 Virginia Traffic Crash Facts": https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/sites/default/files/documents/VA-traffic-crash-2024.pdf
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WAVY.com, "Which Hampton Roads city ranks as most dangerous city to drive in?": https://www.wavy.com/news/virginia/which-hampton-roads-city-ranks-as-most-dangerous-city-to-drive-in/
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WAVY.com, "WRECK WATCH: Top 5 crash-prone intersections in Hampton Roads": https://www.wavy.com/news/investigative/wreck-watch-explores-the-five-worst-intersections-for-crashes-in-hampton-roads/
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WAVY.com, "Danger Ahead: A look at the most dangerous roads in Hampton Roads": https://www.wavy.com/news/investigative/danger-ahead-a-look-at-the-most-dangerous-roads-in-hampton-roads/
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City of Virginia Beach, Public Works, "Road Safety Action Plan": https://pw.virginiabeach.gov/roads/road-safety-action-plan
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Virginia Department of Transportation, Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel Expansion Newsroom: https://hrbtexpansion.vdot.virginia.gov/newsroom/
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Virginia Department of Transportation, "Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (3)" project page: https://www.vdot.virginia.gov/projects/major-projects/64expresslanes/about-hrel/hampton-roads-bridge-tunnel-3/
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U.S. Department of Transportation, Build America, "Downtown Tunnel/Midtown Tunnel/MLK Extension, Norfolk and Portsmouth, VA": https://www.transportation.gov/buildamerica/projects/project-highlights/downtown-tunnelmidtown-tunnelmlk-extension-norfolk-and-portsmouth-va
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Virginia Department of Transportation, "Highway Safety Corridors": https://www.vdot.virginia.gov/about/programs/highway-safety-corridors/