The most dangerous intersections in Richmond and Petersburg

Richmond, Henrico, Chesterfield, and Petersburg sit on top of some of Virginia's most documented crash corridors, and the newest police and state numbers show exactly where the wrecks cluster. West Broad Street shows up on danger lists in both Henrico County and the city of Richmond. A single 2.3-mile stretch of state highway through Petersburg racked up 384 crashes in the years VDOT studied it. None of this is guesswork. It comes from police crash logs and state safety studies with real intersection names attached.

Henrico County's West Broad Street problem

Henrico Police published its 2025 crash statistics in March 2026, and the county's own top ten list is dominated by one road.¹ Nine of the ten highest-crash locations sit on West Broad Street or a road that feeds directly into it:

• W. Broad Street & John Rolfe Parkway: 35 crashes
• S. Laburnum Avenue & Gay Avenue: 23 crashes
• S. Airport Drive & Audubon Drive ramp: 21 crashes
• W. Broad Street & Tom Leonard Drive: 21 crashes
• W. Broad Street & Dominion Boulevard: 19 crashes
• W. Broad Street & Gaskins Road: 19 crashes
• W. Broad Street & Parham Road: 18 crashes
• W. Broad Street & Pouncey Tract Road/Pump Road: 18 crashes
• Gaskins Road & Three Chopt Road: 18 crashes
• W. Broad Street & Libbie Avenue: 17 crashes

Countywide, Henrico logged 5,007 reportable crashes in 2025, a 9 percent drop from 2024's 5,494, even though injuries climbed 38 percent to 3,250.¹ Traffic deaths fell from 48 in 2024 to 33 in 2025. The Varina magisterial district still recorded 11 of those 33 fatalities, more than double any other district in the county.¹ Pedestrian crashes rose 7 percent to 94 in 2025, with 11 pedestrian deaths.¹

Richmond's high injury network, and a bad December

Richmond adopted a Vision Zero policy in 2017, aiming for zero traffic deaths by 2030. The city's own crash analysis, using 2017 to 2019 data, found that just 7 percent of Richmond's road mileage carried 62 percent of all fatal and serious injury crashes, a stretch of roadways planners call the high injury street network.² Broad Street and Belvidere Street, near VCU, sits inside that network and is one of the corridors Richmond Police target for enforcement.³

The city's 2024 numbers looked like real progress: traffic fatalities fell 32 percent, from 25 to 17, and the city cut its citywide speed limit from 45 mph to 35 mph, with a 25 mph limit inside the high injury network.³ Then 2025 reversed course. Richmond recorded 22 traffic deaths in 2025, up from 17 the year before, even as the rest of the region and the state improved.⁴ Statewide, preliminary numbers show Virginia traffic deaths fell from 918 in 2024 to 747 in 2025, a 15 percent drop, according to Virginia State Police.⁴ Richmond moved the opposite direction.

Pedestrians took the brunt of it. City data shows 82 percent of crashes causing death or serious injury happen at an intersection.⁵ Richmond recorded 13 pedestrian deaths in 2025, including Valentine museum director Bill Martin, killed in a marked crosswalk at East Broad Street and North 10th Street on December 27.⁶ The toll didn't stop at the new year. A man in his 60s was struck and killed in the crosswalk at North Harrison Street and West Leigh Street, near VCU, on January 6, 2026, after the signal had already turned green for cross traffic. It was the fourth pedestrian death in Richmond, and the fifth in the region, since Christmas Eve.⁵ Hermitage Road and Laburnum Avenue is another intersection city officials have flagged as a repeat trouble spot.⁶

Chesterfield's Hull Street corridor and its newer pedestrian problem

Chesterfield's fatal crash count actually improved in 2025, dropping to 17 from 27 the year before, a 37 percent decline.⁴ Pedestrian safety hasn't followed the same trend. The county's own Safe Streets for All dashboard counts more than 175 pedestrian crashes on Chesterfield roads between 2015 and 2025, with roughly 57 of them fatal. County engineer Nate Mathis has pointed to a rise in pedestrian crashes since the pandemic.⁷ The county has since finished a pedestrian signal and crosswalk at Robious Road, Cranbeck Road, and Mall Drive, with more projects planned along the Route 60 corridor and near the Fall Line Trail on Route 1.⁷

Hull Street Road has been Chesterfield's problem corridor for over a decade. A county police analysis once ranked Hull Street Road and Old Hundred Road as the county's single worst intersection for five straight years, with more than 75,000 vehicles a day passing through it. Hull Street's junctions with Genito Road and Courthouse Road weren't far behind.⁸ The county widened a nearby stretch of Route 10 near Interstate 95 from four to six lanes in a $10.7 million project completed in 2020, adding turn lanes and sidewalks to cut down on the driveway crossovers that were feeding crashes there.⁹

What VDOT found on Petersburg's Crater Road corridor

Petersburg doesn't publish a countywide crash dashboard the way Henrico and Chesterfield do, but VDOT ran a full safety study of South Crater Road (U.S. 301), Wagner Road, and Rives Road in December 2024, and the numbers are stark for a 2.3-mile stretch of roadway.¹⁰ The corridor logged 384 crashes, with angle collisions (40 percent) and rear-end crashes (29 percent) making up most of them.¹⁰ Four intersections stood out.

South Crater Road and Wagner Road led with 77 crashes, about ten a year. Forty-two percent were angle collisions, and most involved a vehicle heading northbound on South Crater Road.¹⁰ Wagner Road and Medical Park Boulevard, the first traffic signal drivers hit after exiting Interstate 95's free-flow ramps, saw 49 crashes, more than half of them rear-end collisions on westbound Wagner Road.¹⁰ Rives Road and the I-95 southbound ramp recorded 42 crashes, 62 percent of them angle collisions. VDOT's field review found the intersection has a genuine sight-distance problem, caused by the bridge's vertical grade and overgrown foliage.¹⁰ South Crater Road and Crater Circle rounded out the list with 28 crashes.¹⁰ Field reviewers also found faded crosswalk markings and missing ADA-compliant curb ramps at several of these intersections. Pedestrians face the same visibility problems drivers do.¹⁰

After a crash

If you've been hurt at any of these intersections, get a police report and medical care first. Insurance adjusters move fast, and Virginia's own crash data shows why that matters: these are documented, recurring problem spots, not freak accidents. A local attorney who already knows a specific intersection's crash history can put that pattern to work for your case. You can find one through thatcarhitme.com's legal directory.

This article provides general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Henrico Police Department, "2025 Henrico Police Crime Statistics: Traffic Crashes & Charges," published March 25, 2026. https://henrico.gov/assets/2025-HENRICO-POLICE-TRAFFIC-CRASHES.-CHARGES-DATA.pdf

2. City of Richmond Department of Public Works, "Vision Zero Action Plan." https://www.rva.gov/sites/default/files/2021-05/VisionZero-RichmondActionPlan.pdf

3. Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police & Foundation, "Agency Spotlight: Richmond Police Achieve 32% Reduction in Traffic-Related Fatalities in 2024." https://www.vachiefs.org/news/agency-spotlight-richmond-police-achieve-32-reduction-in-traffic-related-fatalities-in-2024

4. WWBT NBC12, "Traffic deaths drop significantly in Virginia during 2025," Jan. 7, 2026. https://www.12onyourside.com/2026/01/07/traffic-deaths-drop-significantly-virginia-during-2025/

5. WWBT NBC12, "Pedestrian dies after hit by car near VCU campus," Jan. 6, 2026. https://www.12onyourside.com/2026/01/06/pedestrian-dies-after-hit-by-car-vcu-campus/

6. WTVR CBS6, "Richmond woman leads effort to 'make our streets safer' after 13 deaths in 2025," Dec. 31, 2025. https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/louise-lockett-gordon-richmond-walker-safety-commission-dec-31-2025

7. Chesterfield County, Virginia, "Step into a New Era of Pedestrian Safety in Chesterfield." https://www.chesterfield.gov/m/newsflash/home/detail/7395

8. WWBT NBC12, "Chesterfield's most dangerous intersections named." https://www.12onyourside.com/story/28753884/most-dangerous-chesterfield-intersections/

9. Virginia Scope, "Chesterfield Completes Route 10 Widening Project near I-95 in Chester." https://www.virginiascope.com/chesterfield-completes-route-10-widening-project-near-i-95-in-chester/

10. Virginia Department of Transportation / Project Pipeline, "S Crater Road (VA 301), City of Petersburg, From Wagner Road to Rives Road," Final Report, December 2024. https://vaprojectpipeline.virginia.gov/media/va-project-pipeline/documents/ri/RI-23-06-Final-Report_acc12262024_PM.pdf