Where Metro Detroit's Crashes Cluster: The Most Dangerous Intersections

Michigan State Police crash data shows exactly where metro Detroit's crashes cluster, from Joy Road on Detroit's west side to the Van Dyke Avenue roundabout in Sterling Heights, plus what MDOT and the city are doing about the worst corners.

ThatCarHitMe.com Editorial
Jun 18, 2026
6 min read

Where metro Detroit's crashes cluster: the most dangerous intersections

Michigan logged 288,880 traffic crashes and 1,099 deaths in 2024, both up slightly from 2023, according to Michigan Traffic Crash Facts, the crash database produced by Michigan State Police's Office of Highway Safety Planning together with the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute1. Wayne County carries a disproportionate share of that total. Detroit alone logged 24,321 crashes, 104 fatalities, and 8,872 injuries in 2024, a per-capita rate high enough to rank the city 15th among Michigan municipalities for crashes per 10,000 residents2.

Crashes in a big metro area don't spread evenly across the map. They cluster at a short list of intersections where heavy traffic, freeway ramps, and old signal timing collide. Here's what the most recent state crash data says about where those clusters sit, from Joy Road on Detroit's west side to a roundabout forty minutes north in Macomb County.

Detroit's own worst corners

Michigan State Police crash records for 2024 put Joy Road at the Southfield Freeway (M-39) at the top of Detroit's own list, with 78 crashes and 27 injuries3. The rest of the city's top ten, from that same 2024 data3:

  • Joy Road at M-39 (Southfield Freeway): 78 crashes, 27 injuries
  • 7 Mile Road at I-75: 69 crashes, 36 injuries
  • Conner Street at Gratiot Avenue: 63 crashes, 34 injuries
  • 8 Mile Road at Dequindre Road: 61 crashes, 23 injuries, 1 death
  • 8 Mile Road at I-75: 61 crashes, 17 injuries
  • M-39 at Warren Avenue: 61 crashes, 17 injuries
  • Livernois Avenue at West Davison Street: 60 crashes, 22 injuries
  • Southfield Service Drive at West McNichols Road: 52 crashes, 23 injuries
  • Warren Avenue at I-75: 51 crashes, 17 injuries
  • Grand River Avenue at Telegraph Road: 47 crashes, 14 injuries

Six of those ten sit where a surface street crosses a freeway: 7 Mile and I-75, 8 Mile and I-75 (twice, counting Dequindre), Warren and I-75, Grand River and Telegraph. Merging traffic from on-ramps and off-ramps lands on a boulevard that's timed for through traffic, and that mismatch shows up in the injury counts as much as the raw crash totals.

Beyond the city limits

Detroit isn't even the worst intersection in its own metro area once you widen the lens to Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties together. The state's 2024 ranking puts 11 Mile Road/I-696 at Van Dyke Avenue, spanning Warren and Center Line, in the top spot statewide, with 185 crashes and 26 injuries4. A few miles north, the roundabout where Van Dyke crosses 18½ Mile Road in Sterling Heights ranks second, with 162 crashes in 2024, up 20 percent from 135 the year before4.

Other metro Detroit entries on the state's top-20 list4:

  • Schoolcraft Road at Telegraph Road, Redford Township: 137 crashes, 26 injuries
  • Telegraph Road at 12 Mile Road, Southfield: 106 crashes, 23 injuries
  • 10 Mile Road at I-94, St. Clair Shores: 96 crashes, 21 injuries, 1 death
  • Middlebelt Road at Schoolcraft Road, Livonia: 95 crashes, 14 injuries
  • 11 Mile Road/I-696 at Hoover Road, Warren: 86 crashes, 18 injuries, 1 death
  • Southfield Road at 11 Mile Road, Lathrup Village: 76 crashes, 38 injuries
  • Hall Road/M-59 at Hayes Road, Macomb Township: 76 crashes, 14 injuries
  • Hall Road at Schoenherr Road, Sterling Heights: 76 crashes, 11 injuries
  • 12 Mile Road at I-94, St. Clair Shores: 75 crashes, 11 injuries, 1 death
  • 11 Mile Road at Gratiot Avenue, Roseville: 72 crashes, 18 injuries

Telegraph Road (US-24) shows up three separate times across these two lists: at Grand River, at 12 Mile, and feeding into Schoolcraft in Redford Township. It's one of the longest, busiest surface routes in the region, and it's also where MDOT has put its most expensive recent fix.

A high crash count isn't always high danger

The Van Dyke roundabout in Sterling Heights deserves a second look before anyone assumes crash count equals danger. A city review of that intersection found no fatalities or serious injuries between 2019 and 2025, despite the crash volume5. Sterling Heights Police Lt. Aaron Susalla, who heads the department's traffic safety division, told reporters most of the incidents there are fender benders rather than life-threatening wrecks5. MDOT's own position is that roundabouts cut fatal and injury crashes even when they raise the total number of minor collisions, because the circular geometry forces lower speeds and removes the T-bone and head-on angles that cause the worst injuries5. Raw crash totals are a starting point, not the whole story, at intersections built this way.

That distinction doesn't hold everywhere on these lists. 8 Mile at Dequindre, both freeway crossings in St. Clair Shores, and 11 Mile/I-696 at Hoover in Warren each recorded a fatality in 2024 on top of dozens of crashes34, and none of those are roundabouts with the same built-in speed reduction.

What Detroit and MDOT are doing about it

Detroit's own numbers explain why the city has put money behind specific corridors. Gratiot Avenue between 8 Mile Road and downtown saw 2,542 crashes, 38 deaths, and 1,237 injuries from 2019 through 2023, including 93 pedestrians struck6. Federal and state sources have committed $62.5 million to fix Detroit's most dangerous streets, including a $12.5 million Safe Streets for All grant earmarked for the Gratiot corridor specifically, City of Detroit chief of infrastructure Sam Krassenstein announced in September 20246. That funding sits inside Detroit's Streets for People action plan, which found that more than a third of the city's fatal and incapacitating-injury crashes happen on just 3 percent of its streets, a set of corridors the city calls its High Injury Network7. As of 2020, Detroit's traffic fatality rate was the second highest among large U.S. cities, and its pedestrian fatality rate ranked third7.

MDOT has already finished its biggest recent fix on this list. The Telegraph Road and 8 Mile Road interchange in Southfield reopened in late November 2024 as Michigan's first diverging diamond interchange, the final piece of a $54 million, two-year rebuild that also replaced five bridges and added 18 new traffic signals along 1.4 miles of Telegraph between Grand River Avenue and 8 Mile8910. The diverging diamond design briefly shifts traffic to the opposite side of the road through the interchange, which removes the loop ramps and left-turn conflict points behind many freeway-adjacent crashes and slows vehicles before they merge10.

If you're hurt at one of these intersections

A crash at a high-volume intersection like these often leaves behind traffic camera footage, multiple witnesses, and a police report worth requesting fast, since some agencies keep dashcam and signal-camera footage on short retention schedules. If you were hurt in a crash at one of these locations, or anywhere else in metro Detroit, an attorney who works these roads regularly can help sort out fault, insurance, and what evidence to lock down before it disappears. You can find one through the legal directory.

This article is for general information, not legal advice.

Sources

  1. Michigan Traffic Crash Facts, "2024 At a Glance," https://www.michigantrafficcrashfacts.org/pub/2024/at-a-glance

  2. ClickOnDetroit (WDIV-TV), "The 20 most dangerous cities, townships for car crashes in Michigan," May 8, 2026, https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2026/05/08/the-20-most-dangerous-cities-townships-for-car-crashes-in-michigan/

  3. ClickOnDetroit (WDIV-TV), "Most dangerous intersections in Detroit -- here's the new top 10," Nov. 19, 2025, https://www.clickondetroit.com/traffic/2025/11/19/most-dangerous-intersections-in-detroit-heres-the-new-top-10/

  4. ClickOnDetroit (WDIV-TV), "Michigan's most dangerous intersections: Here's the new top 20," Nov. 23, 2025, https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2025/11/23/michigans-most-dangerous-intersections-heres-the-new-top-20/

  5. C&G Newspapers, "Is Van Dyke roundabout really that dangerous for drivers?" https://www.candgnews.com/news/is-van-dyke-roundabout-really-that-dangerous-for-drivers-10326

  6. City of Detroit, "City receives $12.5M to make Gratiot corridor safer for all users," Sept. 25, 2024, https://detroitmi.gov/news/city-receives-125m-make-gratiot-corridor-safer-all-users

  7. City of Detroit, "Streets for People: Detroit Comprehensive Safety Action Plan" (2022), https://detroitmi.gov/sites/detroitmi.localhost/files/2022-09/Detroit%20CSAP.pdf

  8. Michigan Department of Transportation, "Two-year project on US-24 (Telegraph Road) from M-5 (Grand River Avenue) to M-102 (8 Mile Road) begins in Wayne County," Feb. 23, 2023, https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/news-outreach/pressreleases/2023/02/23/two-year-project-on-us-24-from-m-5-to-m-102-begins-in-wayne-county

  9. The Detroit News, "Diverging diamond interchange opens at Telegraph, 8 Mile roads," Nov. 29, 2024, https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/2024/11/29/diverging-diamond-interchange-opens-at-telegraph-8-mile-roads/76661197007/

  10. FOX 2 Detroit, "Telegraph construction at 8 Mile wraps up with new diverging diamond interchange opening," https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/telegraph-construction-8-mile-wraps-up-new-diverging-diamond-interchange-opening

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Written by: ThatCarHitMe.com Editorial

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