Rollover, T-bone, and head-on crash hotspots in the Austin area

Not every crash carries the same risk. A tap in stop-and-go traffic on MoPac usually ends with a phone number exchanged. A head-on hit on a dark two-lane road, a T-bone at a busy signal, or an SUV rolling after it leaves the pavement can end a life. Those three patterns cause much of the death and serious injury in and around Austin.

Travis County recorded 155 traffic deaths across 139 fatal crashes in 2024, out of 15,872 reported crashes in all.¹ The surrounding counties push the toll higher: Williamson County had 49 deaths that year, Hays County 28, and Bastrop County 24.¹ Here is where the worst crash types tend to happen, and what you can do about them.

Head-on and wrong-way crashes on I-35

Head-on collisions killed 617 people across Texas in 2024.² They make up a small slice of all crashes but a large slice of the deaths, because two vehicles close on each other at combined speed. Around Austin, Interstate 35 is the road most people picture, and for good reason.

I-35 runs straight through the middle of the metro, and its frontage-road design makes wrong-way entries easy after dark, especially near downtown and the north-side ramps. In September 2025, a driver heading south in the northbound lanes of I-35 in north Austin hit an 18-wheeler and another car. The wrong-way driver, 23, died at the scene.³ One segment of the highway between Wells Branch Parkway and Tech Ridge Boulevard has seen 14 traffic deaths in 10 fatal crashes since 2022, according to Austin Police Department data.⁴

This is an old problem on this road. A TxDOT tally of the entire Texas I-35 corridor counted 20,401 crashes in a single year, with 153 deaths and 471 serious injuries.⁵ If you drive I-35 late at night, the practical defense is to hold the right lane and keep scanning oncoming headlights, since a wrong-way driver usually shows up in what they think is their right lane, the fast lane for everyone going the correct way.

T-bone crashes at Austin intersections

Side-impact, or T-bone, crashes happen where traffic crosses. Statewide, 1,050 people were killed in crashes at or related to an intersection in 2024, the largest single setting in the TxDOT count.² The door and side glass sit inches from the occupant, so an angle hit does more harm than the same force into a bumper.

Austin's serious crashes concentrate on a short list of streets. The city's High-Injury Network, about 8 percent of the street grid, carries close to 60 percent of the serious-injury and fatal crashes across all travel modes.⁶ Most of those are wide arterials with heavy left-turn and cross-traffic movement, the exact geometry that produces angle wrecks. The North Lamar Boulevard and Rundberg Lane intersection in north Austin has been one of the city's repeat problem spots and a target for redesign.⁷ The I-35 interchange with US-183 is another frequent site of serious collisions.⁸

The city has spent a decade working on this. After Austin added more than 100 protected left-turn signals, it recorded a 72 percent drop in opposite-direction left-turn injury and fatal crashes at 73 intersections with enough after-data to measure, and its intersection projects cut fatal and serious-injury crashes by an average of 38 percent.⁹ The takeaway for drivers is plain. A green light is not proof the cross traffic has actually stopped.

Rollover crashes on the toll roads and county edges

Rollovers are a rural and high-speed problem more than a downtown one. Single-vehicle, run-off-the-road crashes killed 1,353 people in Texas in 2024, about a third of all traffic deaths, and rural roads accounted for just over half of the state's fatalities.² When a vehicle leaves the pavement at speed and the tires dig in, taller vehicles tip. Nationally, rollovers were involved in 29 percent of passenger-vehicle occupant deaths in 2022, and the share ran highest for pickups at 39 percent and SUVs at 36 percent.¹⁰

Around Austin, that risk lives on the fast toll roads and the two-lane roads at the edge of the metro. State Highway 130, the tolled bypass east of the city where speeds run well above the interstate limits, has produced repeated rollover deaths. In a 2025 crash near Tesla Road, a car moving at high speed struck another vehicle, rolled several times, and ejected both of its occupants, who died at the scene.¹¹ Ejection is the recurring theme, and it ties straight back to seat belts: of the vehicle occupants killed statewide in 2024 where belt use was known, 45 percent were not buckled.²

Where the risk clusters, and the recent trend

Put the three patterns on a map and a rough picture forms. Head-on and wrong-way crashes cluster on I-35 and the rural two-lane roads outside town. The T-bone wrecks happen at arterial intersections inside the High-Injury Network. Rollovers turn up on the high-speed toll roads and the county edges.

Inside the city, the trend is finally moving the right way. Austin logged 99 traffic deaths and 301 serious injuries in 2025, down from a 2022 peak of 117 deaths and 540 serious injuries.¹² Even so, the 2024 fatality list kept by the city's Vision Zero program still spans I-35, US-183, US-290, MoPac, SH-71, and a long run of surface streets, so the map above is not changing overnight.¹³

If you were in one of these crashes

Get the official record first. The Texas Peace Officer's Crash Report, form CR-3, is what insurers and courts rely on, and once it is filed you can buy your copy through TxDOT's Crash Records Information System for $6 a regular copy or $8 certified.¹⁴ Before anything is towed, photograph the vehicles, the roadway, and any skid or gouge marks, because rollover and angle cases often turn on that physical evidence.

Then watch the clock. Texas gives you two years from the date of the crash to file a personal-injury lawsuit under Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 16.003, and shorter notice deadlines can apply when a government vehicle or a public road authority is involved.¹⁵ If your injuries are serious or fault is in dispute, you can compare attorneys through the thatcarhitme.com legal directory before you sign anything.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Texas Department of Transportation, Crashes and Injuries by County, 2024. https://www.txdot.gov/content/dam/docs/division/trf/crash-records/2024/13.pdf

2. Texas Department of Transportation, Texas Motor Vehicle Traffic Crash Facts, Calendar Year 2024. https://www.txdot.gov/content/dam/docs/division/trf/crash-records/2024/01.pdf

3. KXAN, "23-year-old man identified in I-35 wrong-way deadly crash in north Austin: APD." https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/23-year-old-man-identified-in-i-35-wrong-way-deadly-crash-in-north-austin-apd/

4. KXAN, "Stretch of I-35 in Thursday night's crash has seen 14 traffic fatalities since 2022." https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/stretch-of-i-35-in-thursday-nights-crash-has-seen-14-traffic-fatalities-since-2022/

5. Texas Department of Transportation, I-35 Safety Campaign. https://www.txdot.gov/safety/traffic-safety-campaigns/be-safe-drive-smart/i35-safety.html

6. City of Austin Open Data, "Number of fatalities and serious injuries on the High-Injury Network." https://data.austintexas.gov/stories/s/M-D-3-Number-of-fatalities-and-serious-injuries-on/i39b-qmzk/

7. KXAN, "What's being done to make N. Lamar, Rundberg Lane intersection safer?" https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/whats-being-done-to-make-n-lamar-rundberg-lane-intersection-safer/

8. CBS Austin, "Deadly crash shuts down lanes of I-35, ramp to US 183 in Austin." https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/deadly-crash-shuts-down-lanes-of-i-35-ramp-to-us-183-in-austin

9. City of Austin Transportation and Public Works, Vision Zero program. https://www.austintexas.gov/transportation-public-works/programs/vision-zero

10. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Passenger Vehicles: 2022 Data (FARS). https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/813592

11. KVUE, "2 dead following crash on SH 130 in Travis County." https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/crash-texas-state-highway-130-dead-injured/269-64c50d6b-8a9d-4811-840e-be3e24c1da64

12. City of Austin Transportation and Public Works, "Severe crashes show downward trend in 2025." https://www.austintexas.gov/transportation-public-works/mobility-matters/severe-crashes-show-downward-trend-2025

13. Vision Zero ATX, 2024 Fatalities. https://www.visionzeroatx.org/2024-fatalities/

14. Texas Department of Transportation, Crash Records Information System crash report purchase. https://cris.dot.state.tx.us/public/Purchase/

15. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, Section 16.003. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CP/htm/CP.16.htm