Ask a Florida Highway Patrol trooper working anywhere between the Palm Beach County line and Fort Pierce which roads keep them busiest, and the same names come up fast: Military Trail, State Road 710, Interstate 95, and US 1. Florida recorded 3,138 traffic deaths in 2024, a rate of 13.4 per 100,000 residents that runs above the national rate of 11.5 1. In this stretch of the state, that toll lands on specific, mappable streets and intersections, not an abstract statewide average.
Military Trail's crash-heavy stretch through Palm Beach County
Palm Beach County logged 9,246 crashes at its 200 busiest intersections in 2024, up 36% from 6,813 in 2020, in a county whose population climbed to 1,545,905 that year 2. The top spot went to North Military Trail and Okeechobee Boulevard in West Palm Beach: 119 crashes in 2024, up from 92 in 2023, a location that's held one of the county's two worst spots for more than five years 2. South Military Trail and Forest Hill Boulevard, near Palm Beach International Airport, ran a close second at 101 crashes, flat versus 2023.
Two other jumps stood out. Atlantic Avenue and South Military Trail in Delray Beach went from 55 crashes to 89, landing at seventh countywide, and three separate intersections along Atlantic Avenue made the county's top 20 for 2024. North Alternate A1A at East Indiantown Road in Jupiter climbed from 78 crashes to 95 2.
West Palm Beach itself recorded 5,194 crashes in 2024 in a city of roughly 130,000 people, a rate near 4,067 per 100,000 residents. That's nearly double the per-capita rate on the Treasure Coast in Port St. Lucie, a city more than twice West Palm Beach's size 3.
Port St. Lucie's crash count and Crosstown Parkway
Port St. Lucie logged about 5,540 crashes in 2024 and added roughly 4,000 more through mid-September of 2025, a combined total above 9,500 crashes in 20 months, close to 15 a day 3. Even so, police spokesperson Dominick Mesiti points out the city ranks third safest among Florida's 19 cities over 100,000 residents once you adjust for population, a fast-growing one: Port St. Lucie has added roughly 50,000 residents since 2020 and now sits near 258,000 3.
Growth is outpacing infrastructure at specific corners. At Crosstown Parkway and Congo Street, Port St. Lucie police have logged about 20 crashes since 2022. Residents leaving the Oak Hammock neighborhood have to cross three lanes of Crosstown traffic to reach the median before turning, and at least one has described it as feeling like a risk to her life and her child's every time she drives out 4. The city says a traffic signal is possible once a formal feasibility study and funding line up.
State Road 710, the road Martin County's sheriff calls a death trap
SR-710, signed as Warfield Boulevard through western Martin County on its way to Okeechobee County, has killed 39 people in 31 crashes over the past decade, roughly one death every three months 5. Martin County Sheriff John Budensiek has called it a death trap, and the label got harder to dispute in January 2026, when six people died on the Martin County stretch in the first two weeks of the month alone 6.
FDOT and county officials point to the road's design. It's a rural two-lane cross section with narrow shoulders and heavy truck traffic, and long straightaways invite drivers to pass where there's no safe gap 76. FDOT is now designing a $320 million project to widen roughly 10.5 miles of the corridor from two lanes to a four-lane divided road, split into two segments (state project numbers 453333-2-32-01 and 453333-3-32-01) 7. Right-of-way work isn't funded until fiscal year 2027, and construction isn't scheduled to begin until mid-2029 6. State Rep. John Snyder, R-Stuart, has pressed FDOT to move faster, and crews have started adding lighting, rumble strips, and an extra passing lane as interim fixes 6.
Interstate 95, the spine that ties the market together
FDOT is studying the entire 71-mile run of I-95 from the Palm Beach/Martin county line to the Indian River/Brevard county line as a single corridor, one that passes through Stuart, Fort Pierce, Port St. Lucie, Vero Beach, and Fellsmere. Part of the reason: this stretch is also the region's hurricane evacuation route, through an area FDOT describes as growing faster than almost anywhere else in the state 8.
The danger on that stretch isn't theoretical. Just after 2 a.m. on July 1, 2024, a five-vehicle chain-reaction crash, including a Freightliner semi-truck, killed four people on northbound I-95 near mile marker 153 in Indian River County: a 7-year-old boy, a 40-year-old woman from Palm Bay, and two adults from Miami. Seven more people, including a 2-month-old and two other children, were taken to hospitals. Florida Highway Patrol and the Indian River County Sheriff's Office investigated 9.
Martin County's numbers tell a similar story off the interstate. The county recorded 23 traffic deaths and roughly 3,400 crashes in 2024, and by the end of March 2025 had already logged 12 fatalities, putting it on pace to exceed both 2024 figures. "As the county grows and the counties around us grow, there's more pressure on the roads," Sheriff Budensiek said 10.
US 1 and the roads that don't make headlines until they do
Away from the interstate, US 1 carries the same volume at slower speeds, and the record looks different there: late-night single-vehicle crashes and pedestrians caught in travel lanes. In Vero Beach, a fatal crash shut down the southbound lanes of US 1 at 45th Street for hours after a late-night collision in February 2024, less than two miles north of Vero Beach Regional Airport 11. Outside the cities, most of these crashes fall to Florida Highway Patrol's Troop L, whose Fort Pierce district covers Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River, and Okeechobee counties 12.
If you're hurt on one of these roads
None of this means these roads are unusable, but it does mean knowing the pattern helps. Crashes on Military Trail, SR-710, and I-95 cluster at predictable spots and predictable hours, mostly rush hour on the arterials and late night to early morning on the rural stretches. If you're hurt in a crash on any of them, get a copy of the FHP or local police report before you talk to an insurance adjuster. If the crash involved a commercial truck, a wrong-way driver, or a road FDOT has already flagged for a safety project like SR-710, it's worth getting an attorney's read on the case early. You can start at the legal directory to find one who handles crashes in this part of Florida.
This is general information, not legal advice.
Sources
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IIHS, "Fatality Facts 2024: State by state," https://www.iihs.org/research-areas/fatality-statistics/detail/state-by-state
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Palm Beach County traffic engineering data reported by the Palm Beach Post, "Crashes surge at Palm Beach County's most dangerous intersections," https://www.aol.com/news/crashes-surge-palm-beach-countys-162704537.html
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CBS12, "10,000 crashes in 20 months: Port St. Lucie still ranks among Florida's safest cities," https://cbs12.com/news/local/10000-crashes-in-20-months-port-st-lucie-still-ranks-among-floridas-safest-cities
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WPTV, "Resident shares concerns about Crosstown Parkway, Congo Street intersection in Port St. Lucie," https://www.wptv.com/news/treasure-coast/region-st-lucie-county/port-st-lucie/resident-shares-concerns-about-crosstown-parkway-congo-street-intersection-in-port-st-lucie
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CBS12, "'Death trap' road in Martin County could take years to fix, sheriff wants widening faster," https://cbs12.com/news/local/death-trap-road-state-road-710-martin-county-could-take-years-to-fix-sheriff-budensiek-wants-widening-faster-safety-improvements-highway-danger-widening
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CBS12, "Deadly crashes on State Road 710 spark urgent safety push but major expansion years away," https://cbs12.com/news/local/deadly-crashes-on-state-road-710-spark-urgent-safety-push-but-major-expansion-years-away-death-trap-highway-fdot-widen-feb-12-2026
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Florida Department of Transportation, SR-710 corridor project overview, https://www.fdot.gov/projects/sr-710/1
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Florida Department of Transportation, "I-95/SR-9 Multimodal Master Plan, About the Project," https://www.fdot.gov/projects/i95tcmp/about-the-project
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CBS12, "Fatal crash closes all lanes on I-95 in Indian River County," https://cbs12.com/news/local/fatal-crash-closes-all-lanes-on-i-95-in-indian-river-county-alternative-routes-us-1-florida-highway-patrol-july-1-2024
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WFLX, "Martin County traffic fatalities on track to exceed 2024 numbers," https://www.wflx.com/2025/03/19/martin-county-traffic-fatalities-track-exceed-2024-numbers/
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CBS12, "At least 1 dead in Indian River County crash," https://cbs12.com/news/local/at-least-1-dead-in-indian-river-county-crash-vero-beach-grifford-us-highway-1-45-street-fatal-february-25-2024
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Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, "Troop L of the Florida Highway Patrol," https://www.flhsmv.gov/florida-highway-patrol/troop-boundaries-information/troop-l/