San Antonio's deadliest highways and corridors

If you drive in San Antonio long enough, you build a mental list of stretches to be careful on. The city just backed that instinct with data. In December 2025, the City of San Antonio's Transportation Department launched a public High-Injury Network (HIN) Dashboard mapping where severe and fatal crashes cluster across the metro, part of a broader "Keep Crossings SAfe" campaign.¹ "This dashboard offers residents an unprecedented level of visibility into where the most serious crashes occur," Transportation Director Catherine "Cat" Hernandez said when the tool went live.²

The picture it draws lines up with what TxDOT crash data and San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) incident reports have shown for years. This region's worst crashes concentrate on a handful of named roads.

I-35's most crash-prone mile is near O'Connor Road

Interstate 35 on the Northeast Side logged 154 crashes near O'Connor Road in 2025 alone, the highest concentration anywhere on the highway inside city limits, according to TxDOT crash-map data reported by KSAT.³ The stretch near Judson Road wasn't far behind, with 138 crashes that same year.³ TxDOT is mid-construction on the I-35 Northeast Expansion Program (I-35 NEX) through this corridor. The Central segment is targeted for completion in late 2027 and the South Phase 1 segment in late 2028, with three more phases still in design.³ In the meantime, drivers are navigating shifted lanes and narrowed shoulders at highway speed. SAPD has tied that combination to fatal rear-end crashes, including one in July 2026 in which a distracted driver rear-ended a slowing 18-wheeler near O'Connor Road and died at the scene.⁴

Loop 410's wrong-way problem

Loop 410, the inner loop ringing the urban core, keeps showing up in SAPD's wrong-way crash reports. In June 2026, a wrong-way collision on Southwest Loop 410 near the 13000 block left both vehicles engulfed in flames, killing everyone inside them.⁵ That wasn't an isolated case. In December 2020, a single wrong-way driver caused two separate fatal crashes on the South Side loop within minutes of each other and was later charged with two counts of intoxication manslaughter.⁶ Regional safety planners have tracked this pattern for more than a decade. The Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization's Wrong Way Driver Program, a partnership between SAPD and TxDOT running since 2011, has intercepted 94 wrong-way drivers on area highways before a crash could occur.⁷ TxDOT's Highway Emergency Response Operator (HERO) program has patrolled 239 centerline miles across Bexar, Comal, and Kendall counties since launching in September 2020.⁷

The Finesilver Curve, where I-35 meets I-10

Downtown, the ramp connecting southbound I-35 to westbound I-10 has a name locals know for the wrong reason: the Finesilver Curve. It was engineered decades ago to route around a nearby building rather than to handle modern freight volume, and it tightens partway through in a way that catches loaded 18-wheelers off guard.⁸ "We wish we basically had a bigger curve there to handle the volume of traffic," TxDOT traffic operations manager Dale Picha has said of the connector.⁸ It has produced rollovers for more than two decades, including one in which an overturned truck released hundreds of beehives into downtown traffic.⁸ TxDOT is now roughly a year into a $25.9 million project covering 5.5 miles of I-35 and I-10 downtown aimed at improving safety at the interchange, on top of rail-crossing repairs that shut down lanes into early 2025.⁹ City Councilman Roberto Trevino has pushed for a broader fix, including alternate truck routes, arguing the curve alone may never solve the underlying volume problem.⁸

Culebra Road, the deadliest street that isn't a freeway

Culebra Road is a surface street, not a freeway, and by one measure it's more dangerous than any freeway segment in the city. TxDOT data shows more fatal crashes on this roughly 16-mile West Side corridor between 2017 and 2020 than on any other non-freeway roadway in San Antonio, and the crash data behind the city's HIN Dashboard counts 116 severe or fatal crashes along Culebra between 2018 and 2022.¹⁰ "Culebra is one of the most dangerous in town. There's no getting around that," San Antonio Transportation Department spokesperson Joe Conger told KSAT after a fiery, fatal crash at Culebra and Ingram roads in December 2025.¹¹ The city and the Federal Highway Administration are now funding an $11 million project, $8 million federal and $3 million local, to redesign a five-mile segment between General McMullen Drive and Loop 410 with reconfigured lanes, upgraded crossings, and ADA-compliant sidewalks under the city's Complete Streets framework.¹⁰ Design work is expected to run from summer 2026 through spring 2032. District 7 Councilwoman Marina Alderete-Gavito has said the wait is hard to accept: "this work cannot start soon enough."¹⁰

Culebra isn't the only surface street on the list. HIN Dashboard data covering 2018 to 2022 ranks the corridors trailing behind it for severe and fatal crashes:¹

• Bandera Road: 38 crashes
• Roosevelt Avenue: 37 crashes
• Southeast Military Drive: 34 crashes
• Southwest Military Drive: 31 crashes

Beyond the city, Bexar County's rural roads

The danger doesn't stop at the city line. In November 2024, Bexar County hired engineering firm WSP USA for an 18-month study identifying the county's most dangerous rural and exurban roads, funded by a $300,000 federal Safe Streets for All grant plus $100,000 in county money.¹² Roads flagged in unincorporated Precinct 3 include FM 3351, Kyle Seale Parkway, Specht Road, and the Boerne Stage Road and Blanco Road area near Bulverde. Precinct 4 flagged Aztec Lane near Universal City, Congressional Boulevard, and Gibbs Sprawl Road.¹² "All around unincorporated Bexar County, there are no streetlights with a population of 500,000 people," Precinct 4 Commissioner Tommy Calvert said, describing an area urbanizing faster than its infrastructure can keep up.¹²

If you've been in a crash on one of these roads

None of this data changes what to do right after a wreck: get medical care, get a police report on file, and document the scene if you're able. But knowing a crash happened at a known trouble spot, the O'Connor Road stretch of I-35, the Finesilver Curve, or the Culebra and Ingram intersection, can matter for a claim. A location's crash history is exactly the kind of fact worth raising early with an attorney. The legal directory lists attorneys who handle Texas car crash cases if you need help finding one.

This article provides general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. KSAT, "New public dashboard highlights San Antonio's most fatal, severe crash hotspots," December 4, 2025: https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2025/12/04/new-public-dashboard-highlights-san-antonios-most-fatal-severe-crash-hotspots/

2. Texas Public Radio, "City of San Antonio launches interactive tool as part of safety campaign to mitigate number and severity of crashes," December 4, 2025: https://www.tpr.org/news/2025-12-04/city-of-san-antonio-launches-interactive-tool-as-part-of-safety-campaign-to-mitigate-number-and-severity-of-crashes

3. KSAT, "Stretch of I-35 near O'Connor Road is most crash-prone portion of highway in SA, data shows," July 20, 2026: https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2026/07/20/interstate-35-near-oconnor-road-is-most-prone-to-crashes-in-sa-data-shows/

4. KSAT, "'Distracted' driver dies after crashing into 18-wheeler on Interstate 35, SAPD says," July 8, 2026: https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2026/07/08/driver-dies-after-interstate-35-crash-on-northeast-side-sapd-says/

5. KSAT, "2 killed after fiery wrong-way crash on Loop 410, San Antonio police say," June 14, 2026: https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2026/06/14/multiple-people-killed-after-fiery-wrong-way-crash-on-loop-410-police-say/

6. KSAT, "SAPD: 2 people killed in 2 wrecks involving wrong-way driver on Loop 410," December 24, 2020: https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2020/12/24/sapd-2-people-killed-in-2-wrecks-involving-wrong-way-driver-on-loop-410/

7. Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, Safety page: https://www.alamoareampo.org/Safety/

8. News 4 San Antonio, "Finesilver Curve draws additional scrutiny after weekend truck rollover": https://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/finesilver-curve-draws-additional-scrutiny-after-weekend-truck-rollover

9. KSAT, "Southbound I-35 at Finesilver Curve reduced to one lane until Jan. 21 due to repairs," January 6, 2025: https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2025/01/06/southbound-i-35-at-fine-silver-curve-reduced-to-one-lane-for-rail-repairs/

10. Roads & Bridges, "$11 Million Plan Targets One of San Antonio's Most Dangerous Roads": https://www.roadsbridges.com/road-traffic-safety/news/55367472/11-million-plan-targets-one-of-san-antonios-most-dangerous-roads

11. KSAT, "Culebra Road ranks among San Antonio's most dangerous traffic corridors, data shows," December 11, 2025: https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2025/12/11/culebra-road-ranks-among-san-antonios-most-dangerous-traffic-corridors-data-shows/

12. KSAT, "Bexar County hires engineering firm to identify most dangerous roads," November 1, 2024: https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2024/11/01/bexar-county-hires-engineering-firm-to-identify-most-dangerous-roads/