The most dangerous intersections from West Palm Beach to Fort Pierce

From Military Trail in West Palm Beach to the road locals call Bloody 710 in Martin County, real crash data shows where wrecks cluster across the Treasure Coast and Palm Beach County, and why.

ThatCarHitMe.com Editorial
Jun 23, 2026
6 min read

For six years running, intersections have been the single most common place to get hurt or killed in a Palm Beach County crash. In 2022 alone, intersection wrecks caused more than 330 injuries and 78 of the county's 220 traffic deaths, according to crash data drawn from the University of Florida's Signal Four Analytics system.1 Widen the view across the rest of the West Palm Beach to Fort Pierce media market, through Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River and Okeechobee counties, and the same pattern holds. A short list of named roads and crossroads accounts for an outsized share of the damage.

Military Trail is Palm Beach County's worst corridor

Crashes at the county's 200 busiest intersections climbed almost 36% over five years, from 6,813 in 2020 to 9,246 in 2024, more than 25 a day, according to county traffic engineers.2 Two intersections have traded the top spot for years. North Military Trail at Okeechobee Boulevard led the county with 119 crashes in 2024, up from 92 the year before, and it has held one of the top rankings for more than five years.2 South Military Trail at Forest Hill Boulevard ran second with 101 crashes, matching its county-leading total from 2023.2 Further north, North Alternate A1A at East Indiantown Road in Jupiter tied for fourth with 95 crashes, and Atlantic Avenue at South Military Trail in Delray Beach ranked seventh with 89.2

Military Trail itself runs from Boca Raton to Jupiter and is one of the county's most congested roads, which explains why so many of its crossings show up on the list.2 Valerie Neilson, executive director of the Palm Beach Transportation Planning Agency, put the problem plainly: "We look at it and we say we can't widen this road anymore."2 The county also adopted a Safety Action Plan on May 5, 2026 under the federal Safe Streets and Roads for All program. The analysis behind it reviewed more than 134,000 crashes on county and state roads between January 2019 and December 2023, and found over 2,400 serious-injury crashes and 700-plus fatal ones, which planners used to map a High Injury Network of the corridors and intersections where the worst wrecks cluster.3

Martin County's "Bloody 710"

Drive north into Martin County and the danger shifts from congestion to raw geometry. State Road 710, known locally as Warfield Boulevard, is a two-lane road connecting Martin and Okeechobee counties, and residents have nicknamed it "Bloody 710."4 Since 2022, it has logged more than 1,063 crashes, 10 of them fatal.4 On September 25, 2025, it produced two separate double-fatal wrecks in a single day: a head-on collision in Palm Beach County and, hours later, a crash near the FPL access road on Warfield Boulevard in Martin County.4 Martin County Sheriff John Budensiek has called it "one of the most dangerous roads in the county," and after six people died on its Martin County stretch in the first two weeks of January 2026 alone, said, "The road has to be widened."5

The Florida Department of Transportation is designing a $320 million project to widen roughly 10.5 miles of SR 710, from west of Southeast 126th Boulevard to Southwest Van Buren Avenue, from two lanes to four with a shared-use path.6 The project is still in design, permitting and land acquisition, and construction isn't expected to start before mid-2029.5 Deputies issued about 3,200 citations on Warfield Boulevard in the past year, and FDOT has added lighting, rumble strips and a passing lane while the bigger fix waits.45

St. Lucie County's fixed and unfixed crossroads

St. Lucie County's clearest cautionary tale sits at Okeechobee Road and Midway Road, once controlled only by a one-way stop sign. A 2012 crash involving a school bus carrying 30 students killed 9-year-old Aaron Beauchamp, and a 2018 head-on collision with a wrong-way driver killed 18-year-old Santia Feketa and 17-year-old Britney Poindexter.7 Another fatal crash followed in 2019. The county spent $300,000 in 2020 adding a three-way traffic signal, 15 street lights, a widened turn lane and illuminated pavers, though a viral video in 2024 still showed a driver heading the wrong way through it.7 Santia Feketa's father, Stewart Feketa, put it simply: "Would I have preferred to see a stop sign here a long time ago? Yes."7

Fort Pierce adopted its own Comprehensive Safety Action Plan in September 2025, funded by a $240,000 federal Safe Streets and Roads for All grant awarded in January 2023. It names Indian River Drive, Avenue D, 13th Street, Avenue Q, 29th Street and 17th Street among 20 priority corridors split between FDOT, St. Lucie County, the city and interlocal agreements.8

Port St. Lucie has moved on cameras instead. Using three years of crash data, its police department flagged 10 intersections as the city's worst and asked the council to approve red light cameras there; the council agreed 3-1 on November 24, 2025.9 Cashmere Boulevard at St. Lucie West Boulevard ranked first, with 75 of its 264 crashes in 2022 caused by right-angle collisions.9 Southwest Bayshore Boulevard at Southwest Port St. Lucie Boulevard recorded the highest overall crash count of the ten, 384 wrecks, 48 of them right-angle.9 Notably, none of the ten had recorded a traffic death, even as the city's citywide fatality count was already running ahead of the prior year.910 The list's third confirmed location, Southwest Tradition Parkway at Southwest Village Parkway, has separately logged 341 crashes since January 2020, 197 of them rear-end collisions; a 14-year-old cyclist was airlifted after being hit there in June 2024. The city approved a $1.5 million redesign, calling the junction "a nightmare all throughout the day, all throughout the night, especially during peak time in the evenings."11

Indian River and Okeechobee: fewer cars, same risk

Indian River County is earlier in the process. Its Metropolitan Planning Organization is developing a federally funded Comprehensive Safety Action Plan under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, with a safety analysis phase that ran from October 2024 through January 2025 and public workshops held around the county.12 The plan hasn't published a finished list of priority intersections yet, but the county's participation reflects the same crash concentration seen further south.

Okeechobee County shows what that risk looks like without heavy traffic to explain it. The signalized crossing of US-441 and State Road 70 has seen repeated wrecks and shutdowns, and a fatal crash on SR-70 near the Okeechobee-Highlands county line in June 2026 closed the road for hours and backed up traffic onto U.S. 98.13 Rural, high-speed roads like these don't generate Military Trail-scale crash counts, but the outcome per crash tends to be worse.

The state-level numbers back that up. Florida ranked fifth most dangerous in the nation for pedestrians in Smart Growth America's 2026 Dangerous by Design report, with 3,726 pedestrian deaths from 2020 through 2024 and a rate of 3.32 per 100,000 residents. The Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach metro area, which includes Palm Beach County, ranked 17th deadliest nationally, with 1,062 pedestrian deaths over that span, up from 945 in the prior five years.14

If you're hurt at one of these intersections

None of this makes any single crash inevitable, but it does mean insurers and investigators already know these locations by name. A police report that references a known high-crash location, or names Military Trail, Warfield Boulevard or the Midway Road crossing, can matter later, and an attorney who already knows a corridor's history can put it to use. You can find one through the legal directory.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

  1. Yahoo News (Palm Beach Post), "Palm Beach crash data: 51,181 in 2022. How we're doing in 2023 with teen drivers, motorcycles," https://www.yahoo.com/news/palm-beach-crash-data-51-132112268.html

  2. AOL News (The Boca Raton Tribune), "Crashes Surge at Palm Beach County's Most Dangerous Intersections," https://www.aol.com/news/crashes-surge-palm-beach-countys-162704537.html

  3. Palm Beach County Safety Action Plan, https://www.palmbeachcountysafetyactionplan.com

  4. WFLX, "'Bloody 710': Neighbors want solutions for State Road 710 after 2 double fatal crashes," https://www.wflx.com/2025/09/25/bloody-710-neighbors-want-solutions-state-road-710-after-2-double-fatal-crashes/

  5. 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

  6. Florida Department of Transportation, SR 710 Capacity Improvements Project, https://www.fdot.gov/projects/sr-710/1

  7. WPTV, "Safety improvements completed at St. Lucie County intersection following deadly crashes," https://www.wptv.com/news/treasure-coast/region-st-lucie-county/safety-improvements-completed-at-st-lucie-county-intersection-following-deadly-crashes

  8. Hometown News, "Fort Pierce adopts Comprehensive Safety Action Plan," https://www.hometownnewstc.com/news/st_lucie/fort-pierce-adopts-comprehensive-safety-action-plan-240-000-grant-funded-plan-to-cut-crashes/article_18fc32f6-3b28-50b1-a039-fd5bac901315.html

  9. Hometown News, "PSL gives green light to red-light cameras," https://www.hometownnewstc.com/news/st_lucie/psl-gives-green-light-to-red-light-cameras/article_db83db0a-2dc0-50e7-91ef-bf088c966abe.html

  10. WFLX, "Port St. Lucie moves forward with red light cameras after traffic deaths surge past last year's total," https://www.wflx.com/2025/11/10/port-st-lucie-moves-forward-with-red-light-cameras-after-traffic-deaths-surge-past-last-years-total/

  11. CBS12, "PSL approves $1.5 million fix for 'nightmare' intersection at Village & Tradition Parkway," https://cbs12.com/news/local/port-st-lucie-treasure-coast-news-approves-15-million-fix-for-nightmare-intersection-at-village-tradition-parkway-residents-push-most-expensive-public-workshop-heavy-traffic

  12. Indian River County Safe Streets for All Action Plan, https://www.inspire-engagement.com/irc-ss4a

  13. CBS12, "Drivers urged to avoid SR 70 after fatal crash as reroutes trigger backups on U.S. 98," https://cbs12.com/news/local/traffic-alert-florida-news-drivers-urged-to-avoid-sr-70-after-fatal-crash-as-reroutes-trigger-backups-on-us-98-okeechobee-county-sheriffs-office-highlands-county-sr-70-us-98-and-nearby-roads-killed-backups-delays-buckhead-ridge

  14. Smart Growth America, "2026 Dangerous by Design: State and Metro Rankings," https://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/signature-reports/dangerous-by-design/2026-dbd-rankings/

About This Guide

Written by: ThatCarHitMe.com Editorial

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