Indianapolis's most dangerous intersections, according to the city's own data

If you've driven 38th Street at rush hour or tried to cross Michigan Road on foot, you already have a sense that Indianapolis has an intersection problem. The data backs it up. In 2025, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Area (the region IMPO plans for, spanning Marion County and parts of six neighboring counties) recorded 109 fatal crashes and 633 crashes that left someone seriously injured, a combined 742 people affected in a single year.¹ Across the most recent two years of data, intersections were the single biggest contributing factor behind both categories: 44% of fatal crashes and 53% of combined serious-injury-and-fatal crashes happened at an intersection, ahead of lane departures, speeding, or any other factor the region tracks.¹

The city's own numbers tell a similar story up close. Indianapolis released its first Vision Zero annual report in May 2026, and it found 85 people died on city streets in 2025, down from more than 120 during the pandemic-era peak in 2021.² Pedestrians and cyclists made up more than 30% of those deaths: 24 pedestrians and nine bicyclists killed in one year.² Officials say many of those crashes cluster along what the city calls "high injury network" corridors, the streets and intersections where speeding, crashes, and vehicle-pedestrian conflicts keep showing up.²

How the city actually picks the worst intersections

The Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization (IMPO) doesn't guess at which intersections are the most dangerous. Since 2016 it has commissioned formal safety studies built on ARIES, the Automated Reporting Information Exchange System that serves as Indiana's official crash repository, populated from police reports statewide.³⁴ A 2016 study ranked the region's top 50 crash locations. A 2019 follow-up, run by the traffic engineering firm Corradino LLC, narrowed a list of 70 candidate sites to 24 intersections for full engineering review, using four years of crash records (2015 through 2018) and a traffic-volume-adjusted crash rate so that high-volume intersections didn't automatically dominate the rankings.⁴ A 2023 study added 19 more locations, and a 2026 study now underway covers 25 additional high-crash sites across the metro.¹

Two intersections from the 2019 study show how differently "dangerous" can look depending on whether you're behind the wheel or on foot.

10th Street and Girls School Road, on the west side, logged 171 crashes between 2015 and 2018, more than one a week on average. Thirty-eight people were hurt, though none fatally. Rear-end crashes accounted for 37% of the total and right-angle crashes another 23%, with drivers failing to yield the right of way (35% of crashes) and following too closely (29%) as the top two causes.⁵ IMPO's proposed fix runs about $644,000: a dedicated turn lane, a closed gas-station driveway near the intersection, a new raised median, sidewalk extensions, and updated signal heads.⁵

38th Street and High School Road, in northwest Marion County, is a starker case. Only eight pedestrian and bicycle crashes were logged there over the same four years, but one of them killed a pedestrian crossing 38th Street in the marked crosswalk on the road's westbound approach.⁵ More than 41,500 vehicles a day pass through on 38th Street alone.⁵ The recommended fixes, priced around $218,000, include a pedestrian refuge island, compliant curb ramps, high-visibility crosswalk striping, and new signs reminding turning drivers to yield.⁵

The risk isn't confined to the urban core, either. The same 2019 study flagged four separate intersections along 146th Street in the northern suburbs (at Carey Road, Gray Road, Hazel Dell Parkway, and River Road), plus Crawfordsville Road at Cunningham Road and Parkwood Drive on the far west side, where more than 30,000 vehicles converge daily.⁴

The intersections under the microscope right now

Indianapolis formed a Fatal Crash Review Team in 2022, pulling together the Department of Public Works, IMPD, the Department of Metropolitan Development, and two community members to dig into locations with the worst crash histories using ARIES data.⁶ The team's mandate expanded in 2025 to study six "high-conflict" intersections a year rather than only reviewing crashes after they happen.⁷⁸ The first location chosen for a full Road Safety Audit is 79th Street and Michigan Road on the northwest side, where a two-month DPW study found the highest number of serious-bodily-injury crashes of any intersection in the city.⁷⁸ On IMPO's own risk-score map, the intersection rates a 6 out of a possible 10.⁷

"By investigating areas with the highest incidence of serious crashes, as well as fatal crashes, we believe we can better utilize the data available to us to identify patterns of conflict," said Indy DPW director Brandon Herget.⁶

Other locations have made headlines for different reasons. A cyclist, Frank Radaker, was struck and killed at 86th Street and the Monon Trail in October 2021, an intersection that has since become a reference point for the city's Vision Zero mapping tool, which lets residents flag dangerous streets and near-misses directly.⁹

What the city is doing about it

Indianapolis's City-County Council adopted its Vision Zero ordinance, Proposal No. 224, 2024, on August 12, 2024, by a 22-3 vote.¹⁰ It created a 15-member task force charged with eliminating traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2035, a more aggressive target than IMPO's regional goal of a 35% cut in serious and fatal crashes by 2040, measured against 2020 as the baseline year.¹¹⁰ The task force's Fatal Crash Review Team now examines every pedestrian death in the city, and a separate "Quick Build" team installs short-term fixes, like temporary plastic lane separators, at high-risk spots while full intersection redesigns work through years of planning and funding.⁹

Money is moving toward the worst corridors, if slowly. In 2025, IMPO member agencies distributed nearly $74 million toward safety projects region-wide, including a $15.7 million road-diet rebuild of Madison Avenue and a $2.7 million pedestrian improvement project on 86th Street between Meridian Street and Allisonville Road.¹

If you've been hurt at one of these intersections

None of this data offers much comfort right after a crash. Still, a police report, photos of the intersection, and a note of the exact date and time can matter later, especially at a location with a documented crash history like the ones above. If you need help figuring out who's responsible or dealing with an insurance company, the legal directory at ThatCarHitMe.com can point you to an attorney who handles Indianapolis crash cases.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization, "2026 Annual Safety Report," https://s3-us-east-2.amazonaws.com/mpo-website-2025/wp-media-folder-impo/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/2026-Annual-Safety-Report-FINAL.pdf

2. WTHR, "Indianapolis releases first Vision Zero report as traffic deaths decline from pandemic peak," https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/indianapolis-releases-first-vision-zero-report-traffic-deaths-decline-from-pandemic-peak-cyclists-pedestrians/531-e6689ee1-72ef-4d2a-805d-b8d2e0e384f3

3. Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization, "Intersection Safety Studies," https://indympo.gov/plans-initiatives/safety-studies/

4. Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization / Corradino LLC, "2019 Safety Studies," https://d144uep0xgc2gz.cloudfront.net/downloads/Data/Exec.-Summary_2019-IMPO-Safety-Studies-11-17-19-2.pdf

5. Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization / Corradino LLC, "2019 Safety Studies" (site-specific engineering reviews: 10th Street at Girls School Road, 38th Street at High School Road), https://d144uep0xgc2gz.cloudfront.net/downloads/Data/Exec.-Summary_2019-IMPO-Safety-Studies-11-17-19-2.pdf

6. WFYI, "Fatal crash review team takes a deeper look at dangerous intersections," https://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/fatal-crash-review-team-takes-a-deeper-look-at-dangerous-intersections

7. WISH-TV, "Fatal crash team expands duties; 79th, Michigan Road intersection to get first look," https://www.wishtv.com/news/politics/fatal-crash-team-expands-duties-79th-michigan-road-intersection-to-get-first-look/

8. WRTV, "Fatal Crash Review Team to investigate 6 'high conflict' intersections to promote pedestrian safety," https://www.wrtv.com/news/public-safety/fatal-crash-review-team-to-investigate-6-high-conflict-intersections-to-promote-pedestrian-safety

9. WFYI, "How Indianapolis' new road safety team intends to eliminate traffic deaths by 2035," https://www.wfyi.org/wfyi-news/2026-03-04/how-indianapolis-new-road-safety-team-intends-to-eliminate-traffic-deaths-by-2035

10. Indianapolis Business Journal, "Indy council OKs task force to work toward goal of zero road deaths," https://www.ibj.com/articles/indy-council-oks-task-force-to-work-toward-goal-of-zero-road-deaths