Pedestrian and bicycle crash hotspots in Raleigh, Durham, and Fayetteville

North Carolina reports more than 3,000 pedestrians and 850 bicyclists hit by drivers every year, and about 180 of them die. Those deaths make up roughly 15% of all traffic fatalities in the state, a figure NCDOT's Watch for Me NC program uses to justify targeted enforcement and public education around the Triangle and Fayetteville area.¹ The Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville media market carries a heavy share of that toll. Wake, Durham, and Cumberland counties combine a fast-growing suburban ring with downtown cores that see more people walking, biking, and riding e-scooters than they did five years ago, on street grids that mostly predate any of that.

Raleigh's flagged intersections

Raleigh's own numbers make the case plainly. Between 2019 and 2023, the city logged nearly 1,100 crashes involving someone walking or biking, and pedestrians and cyclists were more than four times as likely to be killed or seriously hurt as someone in a crash involving only vehicles. Citywide, that same five-year window included 185 fatal crashes and 905 more that left someone with a serious injury, with speeding a factor in more than half of the fatal ones.²

Two intersections stand out in statewide rankings. Capital Boulevard at Calvary Drive has recorded more pedestrian and bicycle crashes than any other intersection in North Carolina, and a fatality there in early 2025 pushed the city to move up a redesign. Buffaloe Road at New Hope Road ranks as the most dangerous intersection in Raleigh across all crash types (23rd statewide), one of 21 locations the city has now flagged for safety work.³ Further west, Hillsborough Street at North Boylan Avenue made the top ten in Raleigh's new Comprehensive Safety Action Plan, and New Bern Avenue was named a priority corridor for lighting and crossing upgrades.⁴ The city has already rebuilt the crossing at New Bern Avenue and Trawick Road, adding a high-visibility crosswalk, new pedestrian signal heads, and ADA-compliant curb ramps ahead of the New Bern Avenue Bus Rapid Transit line.⁵ Raleigh's plan targets a 50% cut in fatal and serious-injury crashes by 2040, on the way to zero by 2055.²

Durham's high injury network

Durham's risk is just as concentrated. City transportation staff have found that roughly 74% of fatal and serious-injury crashes happen on only about 10% of Durham's streets, a High Injury Network spanning about 130 centerline miles, based on crash data from 2016 through 2023. A pedestrian is involved in a crash somewhere in the city every three days on average, and Durham counts about 23 traffic deaths a year across all modes.⁶

Recent crashes show where that risk lands. A hit-and-run driver struck and killed a pedestrian on northbound I-885 between the Holloway Street and Cheek Road exits late on the night of July 27, 2026; at least two more vehicles ran over the victim before anyone stopped.⁷ In April 2026, a 15-year-old riding a bicycle on Cole Mill Road near Nancy Rhodes Drive, just south of Sparger Road, was killed by a northbound driver.⁸ Two months later, a pedestrian was struck and killed on North Miami Boulevard the same night a motorcyclist died in a separate crash with a GoTriangle bus.⁹ Durham police have also asked the public for help identifying a driver who hit and seriously injured a pedestrian near NC Highway 54 at Fayetteville Road, a corridor that keeps reappearing in the department's crash reports.¹⁰

Fayetteville's crash backlog

Fayetteville's numbers echo Durham's, at a starker scale. City officials say just 8% of road miles account for nearly 76% of Fayetteville's fatal and serious-injury crashes. The city recorded 675 fatal or serious-injury crashes across all modes between 2019 and 2023, plus 741 more crashes causing injury to someone walking or biking between 2014 and 2023. As of mid-November 2025, seven pedestrians and one bicyclist had already been killed in the city that year.¹¹

Specific intersections keep showing up in police reports. A driver killed 44-year-old Matthew Woolman as he crossed Hope Mills Road at Redwood Drive in September 2024.¹² In October 2023, a driver heading north on Dunn Road struck two pedestrians near Dobbin Holmes Road, killing 19-year-old Robert Tatem and leaving a second man with a fractured skull and brain bleeding.¹³ More recently, Fayetteville police shut down 71st School Road between Wright Street and Media Drive after a fatal hit-and-run there in November 2025.¹⁴

The city's newly drafted pedestrian plan lists 144 separate sidewalk and crossing projects, totaling about $770 million and 146 miles of new sidewalk, with more than half of those projects sited on corridors or intersections that had a pedestrian or bicycle crash in the last five years.¹⁵ The city council put an initial $8 million in bond funding toward that backlog in 2024.¹¹

Where the risk concentrates

A few named locations turn up again and again in the crash data and news coverage across the three cities.

• Capital Boulevard at Calvary Drive, Raleigh (the highest pedestrian and bicycle crash count of any intersection in North Carolina)³
• Buffaloe Road at New Hope Road, Raleigh (the most dangerous intersection in the city across all crash types)³
• New Bern Avenue at Trawick Road, Raleigh (rebuilt in 2025 as part of the BRT corridor project)⁵
• NC Highway 54 at Fayetteville Road, Durham (a repeat site of hit-and-run pedestrian crashes)¹⁰
• Cole Mill Road near Sparger Road, Durham (site of a 2026 bicyclist fatality)⁸
• Hope Mills Road at Redwood Drive, Fayetteville (site of a 2024 pedestrian fatality)¹²
• 71st School Road between Wright Street and Media Drive, Fayetteville (closed after a fatal 2025 hit-and-run)¹⁴

What to do if you're hit

If a driver hits you while you're walking or biking anywhere in this market, call 911 and get medical care first, even if you feel okay. Adrenaline hides injuries, and a same-day medical record matters later. Ask the responding department, Raleigh Police, Durham Police, or Fayetteville Police, for the crash report number before you leave. If the driver takes off, note which direction the vehicle went and get as much of the plate as you can; all three of the intersections named above have had drivers flee the scene at some point, so don't assume the other driver will stick around.

Photograph the crossing itself. Crosswalk paint and signal timing can matter as much as the impact itself once a claim gets built. If you're not sure how to handle the insurance side of a pedestrian or bicycle claim, a local attorney can help you sort out fault and medical liens; you can find one through our legal directory.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. NCDOT, Watch for Me NC: https://www.ncdot.gov/watchforme/default.aspx

2. City of Raleigh, Safe Streets for All Comprehensive Safety Action Plan: https://raleighnc.gov/transportation/services/vision-zero/safe-streets-all-comprehensive-safety-action-plan

3. ABC11, "Dangerous Intersections NC: Raleigh city leaders look to improve safety in nearly two dozen areas" (March 5, 2025): https://abc11.com/post/dangerous-intersections-nc-raleigh-city-leaders-looks-improve-safety-dozens-areas/15977387/

4. ABC11, "Crash prevention NC: Ways to curb serious crashes, eliminate traffic deaths unveiled in Raleigh Safety Action Plan": https://abc11.com/post/crash-prevention-nc-ways-curb-serious-crashes-eliminate-traffic-deaths-unveiled-raleigh-safety-action-plan/18980222/

5. City of Raleigh, "Vision Zero Improvements Complete on New Bern Avenue and Trawick Road": https://raleighnc.gov/transportation/news/vision-zero-improvements-complete-new-bern-avenue-and-trawick-road

6. City of Durham, Vision Zero: https://www.durhamnc.gov/2995/Vision-Zero

7. WRAL, "Pedestrian killed in crash on I-885 in Durham": https://www.wral.com/news/local/dpd-885-deadly-pedestrian-july-2026/

8. CBS 17, "Juvenile on bicycle struck, killed in northwest Durham crash on Cole Mill Road": https://www.cbs17.com/news/local-news/durham-county-news/person-dies-in-northwest-durham-crash-on-cole-mill-road/

9. Hoodline, "Two Killed in Durham Late-Night Crashes": https://hoodline.com/2026/06/deadly-durham-night-biker-and-pedestrian-killed-in-separate-crashes/

10. CBS 17, "Durham police need help after Friday hit and run crash seriously injures pedestrian": https://www.cbs17.com/news/local-news/durham-county-news/durham-police-need-help-after-thursday-hit-n-run-crash-seriously-injures-pedestrian/

11. CBS 17, "After deadly crashes, Fayetteville addressing pedestrian safety" (November 19, 2025): https://www.cbs17.com/news/local-news/cumberland-county-news/after-deadly-crashes-fayetteville-addressing-pedestrian-safety/

12. ABC11, "Man killed crossing Hope Mills Road": https://abc11.com/post/man-killed-crossing-hope-mills-road-fayetteville-pedestrian-struck-intersection/15274812/

13. WRAL, "'My son needs justice': No charges filed in deadly pedestrian crash in Cumberland County": https://www.wral.com/news/local/pedestrians-hit-killed-cumberland-county-oct-2023/

14. City of Fayetteville Police Department, Pedestrian Fatality media release: https://www.fayettevillenc.gov/City-Departments/Police-Department/FPD-Media-Releases/Pedestrian-Fatality

15. CityView NC, "Solving Fayetteville's walkability problem could cost city three-quarters of a billion dollars": https://www.cityviewnc.com/stories/solving-fayettevilles-walkability-problem-could-cost-city-three-quarters-of-a-billion-dollars/