Salt Lake County had more crashes and more fatal crashes than any other county in Utah in 2024. Statewide, someone crashed every 8.8 minutes, someone was hurt every 19.4 minutes, and someone died every 31.6 hours, according to the Utah Highway Safety Office's 2024 Crash Fact Sheet1. Salt Lake County alone accounts for roughly 40% of that crash volume and 26% of the state's traffic deaths from 2020 through 20242. Statewide fatalities actually dropped in 2025, to 264 from 277 the year before, the lowest count since 2019, though motorcyclist deaths jumped 32% and teen deaths nearly doubled to 313. Salt Lake City's own roads didn't share fully in that improvement. A short list of highways and arterials keeps generating the same crashes, the same injuries, and increasingly the same headlines.
I-15, Bangerter Highway and Porter Rockwell Boulevard
Southern Utah University criminal justice professor Sangjun Park spent months running five years of UDOT crash records, 2021 through 2025, across more than 750,000 road segments statewide to build a public tool called Street Explorer. Three Salt Lake Valley roads came out on top: I-15 through South Salt Lake, Porter Rockwell Boulevard in Bluffdale, and Bangerter Highway in West Valley City4. Bangerter carries some of the valley's heaviest commuter traffic through a corridor UDOT has spent years converting from a signalized arterial into a freeway, swapping stoplights for interchanges specifically to cut the crash risk those intersections created5. That rebuild isn't finished everywhere. On December 28, 2025, a driver swerving between lanes at high speed on Bangerter near 4100 South in West Valley City hit six vehicles stopped at a red light, killing one person5.
I-215's commercial-vehicle problem
The valley's belt route has its own pattern: semi-trucks losing control on the west side near the I-80 interchange. Utah Highway Patrol Sergeant Nathan Eddington described two separate semi crashes in one Friday morning alone, both single trucks that struck barriers in wet weather, and pointed to a similar crash weeks earlier on the same ramp6. "On this west belt of 215, we're seeing several commercial vehicle crashes," he said, urging drivers to slow down and give crews room to work6. I-215 crashes aren't limited to commercial rigs. In July 2026, a car's hood flew open near Redwood Road in Taylorsville. The driver braked and came to a stop between travel lanes, and a semi-truck behind her couldn't stop in time. The driver, 28-year-old Lovine Aiulu Saili, later died from her injuries, according to the Department of Public Safety7.
Redwood Road, mile after mile of the same crash
No corridor in the valley draws more sustained criticism than Redwood Road, State Route 68, which runs the length of Salt Lake County from Salt Lake City through South Salt Lake, Taylorsville, West Jordan, Riverton and Bluffdale. The advocacy group Sweet Streets counted 10 deaths on Redwood Road between California Avenue and 1000 North in the three years leading up to 2023, close to one every four months8. At the intersection of Redwood Road and 500 North alone, UDOT spokesperson John Gleason confirmed 22 crashes since January 2021, four of them involving pedestrians9. The pattern hasn't slowed. On November 18, 2025, Riverton resident Emmanuel Flores-Hernandez was allegedly driving a Tesla at 107 mph on Redwood Road near 6600 South in West Jordan when he struck an Acura MDX driven by 66-year-old Lisa McGeary. She sustained fatal injuries. Flores-Hernandez now faces manslaughter, a second-degree felony under Utah Code Section 76-5-20510, along with a charge of providing alcohol to a minor11. Advocates argue the road's wide, high-speed lane configuration, built to freeway-era standards despite functioning as a city street with constant pedestrian crossings, is the underlying problem8.
State Street's parallel death toll
State Street, US-89, runs a similar gauntlet on the east side of the valley: a high-speed retail corridor with marked crossings spaced blocks apart. Salt Lake City had logged at least 19 traffic deaths by late October 2023, and one of them, a hit-and-run at 700 South State Street on October 25 of that year, became a rallying point for pedestrian advocates8. Sweet Streets board member Ben Wood put the blame on road design rather than driver behavior. UDOT spokesperson Mitch Shaw disagreed: "Most of it has to do with drivers not paying attention, pedestrians not paying attention"8. Both descriptions fit the same intersections.
What the city and state are doing about it
Salt Lake City became Utah's first Vision Zero city on January 11, 2023, when Mayor Erin Mendenhall set a goal of zero traffic deaths and serious injuries by 203512. The city counted 12 traffic deaths in 2025: five on streets it owns and seven on state-owned roads running through it, a split Sweet Streets says proves that city arterials aren't the biggest hazard. A handful of UDOT-owned streets, the group notes, have killed more people over the past five years than every city-owned street combined13. Salt Lake City's capital budget put $2.3 million into "Vision Zero Corridors and Safety Improvements" on Redwood Road, 900 West and 800 South, on top of a $2 million annual Livable Streets Program and a rolling crosswalk budget of $200,000 to $500,000 a year that already funded a curb bulb-out and a flashing beacon at 400 East and 2100 South in Sugar House14. A draft Safe Streets Action Plan, meant to identify the small share of streets responsible for most of the deaths, was slated for release in March 202613.
Walking is the riskiest way to use these roads
Statewide, 2025 brought 976 pedestrian-involved crashes and 35 pedestrian deaths, more than half of them at intersections or marked crosswalks, the places pedestrians are told are safe15. Utah Highway Patrol Sergeant Mike Alexander said four pedestrians died in the dark in the five weeks after Thanksgiving 2025 alone, and urged people to wear something reflective or turn on a phone light given Utah's low winter sun angle15. West Valley City, home to Bangerter Highway, recorded three pedestrian deaths on its own in 202415.
If you're hurt on one of these roads
A crash on Redwood Road, Bangerter Highway, State Street, I-15 or I-215 usually happens on a state-owned highway. That means UDOT right-of-way records and Utah Highway Patrol reports come into play alongside city police reports, and often more than one insurance carrier if a commercial truck or rideshare vehicle is involved. If you need help sorting out a claim, the legal directory lists attorneys who handle Utah crash cases.
This is general information, not legal advice.
Sources
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Utah Highway Safety Office, 2024 Crash Fact Sheet: https://highwaysafety.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2025/10/2024-Crash-Fact-Sheet.pdf
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Utah Highway Safety Office, 2026 Statewide Problem Identification: https://highwaysafety.utah.gov/2026-problem-id/
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UDOT, "UDOT and DPS release 2025 statewide traffic fatality numbers": https://connect.udot.utah.gov/2026/01/06/udot-and-dps-release-2025-statewide-traffic-fatality-numbers/
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Fox 13, "Try the new interactive map to find Utah's most dangerous roads": https://www.fox13now.com/driventochange/try-the-new-interactive-map-to-find-utahs-most-dangerous-roads
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KUTV, "One killed in multiple-vehicle crash on Bangerter Highway in West Valley": https://kutv.com/news/local/one-killed-in-multiple-vehicle-crash-on-bangerter-highway-in-west-valley
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Fox 13, "Officials urge caution after wet roads cause several serious crashes": https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/northern-utah/officials-urge-caution-after-wet-roads-cause-several-serious-crashes
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Utah Department of Public Safety, "Fatal Crash On I-215 In Salt Lake County": https://dps.utah.gov/press-releases/fatal-crash-on-i-215-in-salt-lake-county/
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KUTV, "Organization blames UDOT for continued spike in Salt Lake traffic-related fatalities": https://kutv.com/news/local/organization-blames-udot-for-continued-spike-in-traffic-related-fatalities-sweet-streets-local-advocate-salt-lake-city-700-south-state-street-pedestrian-infrastructure
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KSL, "Advocates call for change on Redwood Road after man hit by car": https://www.ksl.com/article/traffic-roads/redwood-road-safety/906234
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Utah Code Section 76-5-205, Manslaughter: https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title76/Chapter5/76-5-S205.html
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Fox 13, "Riverton man facing manslaughter charges in fatal Redwood Road crash": https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/salt-lake-county/riverton-man-facing-manslaughter-charges-in-fatal-redwood-road-crash
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Salt Lake City, Vision Zero program page: https://www.slc.gov/transportation/safety/salt-lake-city-vision-zero/
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Sweet Streets SLC, Vision Zero Update, January 2026: https://sweetstreetsslc.org/news/vision-zero-jan2026
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Fox 13, "Safety enhancements reaching Salt Lake City streets to protect pedestrians": https://www.fox13now.com/news/driven-to-change/safety-enhancements-reaching-salt-lake-city-streets-to-protect-pedestrians
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KSL, "Pedestrian-car crashes are a growing concern says Utah law enforcement": https://www.ksl.com/article/news/utah/pedestrian-car-crashes-are-a-growing-concern-says-utah-law-enforcement/51588892