The most dangerous intersections and roads in Dallas-Fort Worth

If you were hurt in a wreck on Loop 12, I-35E, or one of Fort Worth's flagged corridors, the data backs up what you already suspect: certain roads in this region carry far more than their share of serious crashes. Across the 12-county Dallas-Fort Worth planning area, the North Central Texas Council of Governments recorded 804 fatal crashes and 859 deaths in 2023, a total that fell to 691 fatal crashes and 734 deaths by 2025, a decline of roughly 14%.¹ Speeding remains the top contributing factor region-wide, accounting for 32% to 35% of crashes in NCTCOG's own tracking over the past several years.²

Dallas's shifting deadliest-street title

Dallas County logged 305 fatal crashes and 331 fatalities in 2024, according to TxDOT's Crash Records Information System; within Dallas city limits, that was 210 fatal crashes.³⁴ Dallas has ranked among the worst large U.S. cities for traffic deaths, with roughly 15 deaths per 100,000 residents between 2017 and 2021.⁵

For years, the city's deadliest road was Loop 12, known locally as Ledbetter Drive through South Dallas. Between 2019 and 2024, Loop 12 saw 105 deadly crashes and at least 479 serious-injury wrecks, and one 8.6-mile stretch through South Dallas logged 16 deaths in a single year, including five pedestrians killed within 11 months.⁶⁷ State Senator Royce West put it plainly: "Dallas has grown so much Loop 12 is no longer an outer loop. It is the inner loop."⁷ The city and TxDOT cut the speed limit on that southern stretch from 45 to 40 mph, installed 16 new traffic signals over an 18-month rollout, and Dallas police wrote more than 800 citations in the two months after the speed change alone.⁷ It worked. Loop 12 deaths fell 52% in 2025 compared to 2024, and citywide fatal crashes dropped 25%, 53 fewer than the year before.⁶

That progress moved the title elsewhere. By 2025, Interstate 35E had become Dallas's deadliest road, with 14 fatal crashes for the year.⁶ Dallas's Vision Zero High Injury Network, last refreshed in spring 2025, still points to a cluster of South and East Dallas arterials as the worst for people killed or seriously injured: Buckner Boulevard between Lake June Road and Great Trinity Forest Way (24 vehicle-occupant KSI, plus pedestrian and bicycle injuries), Northwest Highway between Walton Walker Boulevard and Harry Hines Boulevard (21 vehicle-occupant KSI), and Storey Road from the Irving city limit to Northwest Highway (18 vehicle-occupant KSI).⁸ Farther east, the city has been adding a painted crosswalk and a pedestrian beacon at Ferguson Road and Matterhorn Drive after a string of pedestrian crashes there.⁹

Dallas adopted Vision Zero in 2019, aiming to eliminate traffic deaths by 2030 and cut severe injuries in half along the way.¹⁰ Between 2015 and 2019, the city averaged 114 fatal crashes and 687 severe-injury crashes a year, and just 8% of Dallas streets, mostly principal arterials, accounted for 60% of those killed-or-seriously-injured crashes.¹⁰ The city is funding the work with roughly $1.6 million a year in city money, $8 million from the 2024 bond program, and a $21.8 million federal Safe Streets and Roads for All grant awarded in January 2024 for safety upgrades along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, including reduced lanes, separated bike lanes, and better crosswalks.⁵⁹

Fort Worth's same danger spots, years apart

Fort Worth's list of dangerous intersections has barely changed in a decade. A 2016 study first flagged Weatherford Street at Henderson Street as the city's highest-frequency injury-crash intersection, with more than two dozen injury wrecks in three years; the same study named eastbound I-30 at East Chase Parkway as the worst stretch for injury wrecks in the city, and Rosedale Street at University Drive as a hotspot MedStar's Matt Zavadsky attributed to driver distraction.¹¹ Nearly ten years later, NBC 5 Investigates found the same pattern holding: streets flagged as dangerous in a 2019-2020 city safety study were still among the deadliest in 2024, with citywide traffic deaths and injuries up nearly 30% since that original mapping.¹² McCart Avenue recorded 15 crashes that killed 17 people between 2019 and 2024, likely making it the city's single deadliest street, while East Berry Street, flagged in 2019 as one of the worst corridors for pedestrian deaths, has had 10 fatalities over the same five years.¹²

Fort Worth's fatal crashes rose 31% and serious-injury crashes rose 22% in the five years leading up to early 2024.¹³ That pushed the city to build a full Vision Zero Safety Action Plan, which the city council approved in October 2025 with a target of zero traffic deaths by 2050.¹⁴ The plan's underlying numbers explain the urgency: 68,936 crashes over five years, with 2,589 of them, 3.8%, ending in a death or serious injury, and pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists making up just 4% of crashes but 34% of those killed or seriously hurt.¹⁴

Tarrant County's enforcement surge

Tarrant County's death toll kept climbing even as Fort Worth built its plan. The county logged 205 fatal crashes in 2024 and was on pace for roughly 234 by the end of 2025, a projected 14% increase.¹⁵ That prompted "Operation Safe City, Dangerous Roads," a joint effort by the Tarrant County Sheriff's Office, Fort Worth police, Arlington police, and Texas DPS troopers targeting speeding, weaving, and reckless driving on county highways.¹⁵ Arlington's own crackdown, a 25% jump in traffic stops and a 31% jump in citations, has been credited with cutting the city's traffic deaths from 52 in 2023 to 37 in 2024 to 29 in 2025, and county officials are pointing to it as a model for the rest of Tarrant County.¹⁶ Arlington's North Collins Street at the Interstate 30 service road has already seen at least one fatal crash caused by a driver running a red light, a reminder that busy commercial intersections carry real risk even away from the freeway mainlanes.¹⁷

If you've been hurt at one of these locations

None of this history changes what you need to do after a crash: get medical care, get a copy of the police report, and get everything documented before you deal with an insurance adjuster who may already know these roads' track record. If you're looking for a personal injury attorney in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, the legal directory is a place to start.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. North Texas Sees Significant Decline in Traffic Fatalities as Regional Safety Efforts Gain Momentum, North Central Texas Council of Governments, https://www.nctcog.org/trans/about/news/north-texas-sees-significant-decline-in-traffic-fatalities-as-regional-safety-efforts-gain-momentum

2. Regional Crash Data, North Central Texas Council of Governments, https://www.nctcog.org/trans/quality/safety/transportation-safety/regional-crash-data

3. Crashes and Injuries by County 2024, Texas Department of Transportation, https://www.txdot.gov/content/dam/docs/division/trf/crash-records/2024/13.pdf

4. Crashes and Injuries Cities and Towns 2024, Texas Department of Transportation, https://www.txdot.gov/content/dam/docs/division/trf/crash-records/2024/14.pdf

5. Dallas receives $21.8 million in federal grant money to make streets safer, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/dallas-receives-21-8-million-in-federal-grant-money-to-make-streets-safer/3426416/

6. Dallas sees fewer fatal crashes on deadly Loop 12, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, https://www.nbcdfw.com/investigations/driven-to-death-loop-12-dallas-deadliest-street/3968488/

7. Safety changes coming to Loop 12, 'the deadliest roadway in Dallas', FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth, https://www.fox4news.com/news/loop-12-safety-changes

8. 10 Deadliest Roads in Dallas, Texas, Dallas Observer, https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/deadliest-roads-in-dallas-texas-20088043/

9. Fatal traffic crashes in Dallas trending down in first months of 2025, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, https://www.nbcdfw.com/investigations/dallas-fatal-traffic-crashes-trending-down-in-first-months-of-2025/3844401/

10. Vision Zero Dallas, City of Dallas Department of Transportation, https://dallascityhall.com/departments/transportation/Pages/Vision-Zero-Dallas.aspx

11. Fort Worth's Most Dangerous Intersections, CBS News Texas, https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/fort-worths-most-dangerous-intersections

12. Fort Worth streets identified as dangerous years ago are still among the most deadly, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, https://www.nbcdfw.com/investigations/fort-worth-vision-zero-most-dangerous-streets/3541761/

13. Fort Worth fatal crashes up 31% in five years as city talks 'Vision Zero', NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth, https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/fort-worth-fatal-crashes-up-31-in-5-years-as-city-talks-vision-zero/3455091/

14. Fort Worth City Council Approves Ambitious Vision Zero Plan Aiming for Zero Traffic Fatalities by 2050, Hoodline, https://hoodline.com/2025/10/fort-worth-city-council-approves-ambitious-vision-zero-plan-aiming-for-zero-traffic-fatalities-by-2050/

15. Tarrant County expects traffic deaths this year to exceed 230. Cops have a plan to stop that, Fort Worth Report / KERA News, https://www.keranews.org/news/2025-10-30/tarrant-county-expects-traffic-deaths-this-year-to-exceed-230-cops-have-a-plan-to-stop-that

16. Arlington Slams the Brakes on Deadly Crashes as Tarrant County Spirals, Hoodline, https://hoodline.com/2025/11/arlington-slams-the-brakes-on-deadly-crashes-as-tarrant-county-spirals/

17. Arlington rideshare passenger killed, driver charged with intoxication manslaughter, CBS News Texas, https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/arlington-rideshare-passenger-killed-bernida-collins-intoxication-manslaughter