Deadly Weekend on Denton Area Roads Kills One, Severely Injures Four
Four unrelated crashes in Denton over the weekend killed one person, critically injured two and seriously injured two more. All incidents involved the driver of an automobile colliding with someone outside of an automobile.
All four crashes occurred on or near a wide, high-speed roadway owned by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).
Dallas Drive
On Saturday afternoon, the driver of a Chevrolet Silverado struck and killed a 22 year-old on a motorcycle on Dallas Drive at Rio Grande Boulevard.
On Sunday morning, the driver of a sedan struck and critically injured a person crossing Dallas Drive on foot near Teasley Lane. This crash was just a few blocks from Sunday’s fatal crash.
Location of Saturday and Sunday’s crashes on Dallas Drive.
Dallas Drive is owned by TxDOT and is designed in a way that is likely to severely injure or kill people in the event of a crash:
Speed limit of 45 mph but with actual driving speeds much faster.
Wide, four lanes plus a turn lane.
Multiple intersections without traffic lights to help people crossing or turning left onto Dallas Drive.
In September 2021, residents along Dallas Drive reached out to Denton City Council member Vicki Byrd about safety concerns at the intersection where Saturday’s fatal crash occurred. City staff responded to Byrd’s inquiry in the Friday Staff Report from October 8, 2021:
Dallas Drive (US 77) and Rio Grande Blvd Concerns - On September 30, Council Member Byrd submitted a request to address a resident’s safety concerns at Dallas Drive and Rio Grande Boulevard intersection. Dallas Drive (US 77) is a Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) roadway, and the subject intersection is located approximately 900 feet from the Calloway’s driveway to the east. In April 2021, TxDOT installed cones and delineators at the intersection of Dallas Drive, the I-35E northbound offramp and the frontage road (near Calloway’s) to prevent northbound frontage road motorists from crossing Dallas Drive. The intent of the cones and delineators is to improve the safety of the intersection and reduce collisions caused by vehicles traveling at fast speeds on the I035E offramp not anticipating through traffic across Dallas Drive. TxDOT made this improvement at the request of the Denton Police Department following several accidents at the intersection.
TxDOT plans to replace the Dallas Drive left lane I-35E onramp with underpass access to the I-35 southbound frontage road as part of the future I-35E widening project. City staff will evaluate the intersection for safety and contact the requestor as soon as possible to address the issues with temporary solutions. Capital Projects/Engineering staff will also notify the Denton Police Department of speeding concerns reported on Dallas Drive.
The 45 mph speed limit on Dallas Drive brings a high risk of severe or fatal injury in the event of a crash even when motorists are not speeding. The speed also makes it more difficult for motorists to notice and react to something unexpected like someone attempting to cross or turn left onto Dallas Drive.
A key factor in crash severity is impact speed.
For people outside of an automobile, they have a 13 percent chance of severe or fatal injury if struck by a motorist traveling at 20 mph. The risk of severe or fatal injury spikes to 73 percent at an impact speed of 40 mph. Dallas Drive has a speed limit of 45 mph with actual driving speeds likely 50 mph or faster.
Image from Learn about Speed Management (Mass.gov)
Injury severity can be worse depending on the age of the person hit and the size and weight of the vehicle the motorist is driving. Smaller sedans tend to throw people up and over while most modern trucks and SUV’s send people down and underneath the vehicle.
For people in automobiles who are hit in a side impact collision–a t-bone crash–they have a 10 percent chance of fatal injury at 30 mph, 50 percent chance at 40 mph and a nearly 100 percent chance at 50 mph.
Original image without edits from “Exploration of vehicle impact speed - injury severity relationships for application in safer road design” (Jurewicz et al., 2016)
The growing size of automobiles has also increased injury risk for people in automobiles.
Vehicle safety tests through the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) recently increased the weight and speed of their side impact tests to better reflect the growing weight of U.S. vehicles and faster driving speeds. The weight of the striking mechanism was increased from 3,300 pounds to 4,200 pounds and the strike speed from 31 mph to 37 mph. The results are troubling.
Barrel Strap Road
On Sunday morning, the driver of a Dodge Challenger struck and critically injured a man on a motorcycle on Barrel Strap Road at Pine Hills Lane.
Like Dallas Drive, Barrel Strap Road, FM 2499, is owned by TxDOT. It has the same design features that make severe and fatal crashes more likely:
Speed limit of 45 mph but with actual driving speeds much faster.
Wide, six lanes plus a turn lane.
No traffic light to help people crossing or turning left onto Barrel Strap.
Barrel Strap Road (FM 2499) at Pine Hills Lane.
Carroll Boulevard / Fort Worth Drive
On Sunday afternoon, the driver of a sedan struck and seriously injured two people crossing Carroll Boulevard on foot at Collins.
Collins Street is where Carroll Boulevard, a city roadway, becomes Fort Worth Drive, a TxDOT roadway.
As with the other crashes over the weekend, this segment of roadway has design features that make severe and fatal crashes more likely:
Speed limit of 35 mph but with actual driving speeds much faster.
Wide, six lanes plus a turn lane.
In addition to the long crossing distance for pedestrians and high vehicle speeds, there is no crosswalk or pedestrian button on the south side of the intersection. This lack of crosswalk may have contributed to a crash nearly a year ago that sent a 59 year-old man to the hospital.
Read: Driver Strikes Man on Bicycle along Fort Worth Drive (Bike Denton, 9/19/21)
Carroll Blvd / Fort Worth Dr at Collins Street
The U.S. Traffic Safety Crisis
Traffic fatalities in the United States are increasing every year as traffic fatalities are decreasing in peer countries.
In 2020, Americans drove less due to the pandemic, resulting in 22 percent fewer crashes overall compared to 2019. Despite fewer crashes, fatalities increased 6.8 percent to 38,824 Americans killed.
In 2021, U.S. traffic fatalities rose another 10.5 percent compared to 2020. Last year, 42,915 Americans were killed in traffic crashes, a 16-year high.
This year, early estimates by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) show an additional 7 percent increase in traffic fatalities in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the first quarter of 2021. An estimated 9,560 Americans were killed in traffic crashes in the first quarter of 2022, the highest first quarter toll since 2002.
The NHTSA has responded to rising fatalities by relying on the same tools it has used as fatalities have increased: asking humans to not make mistakes. This has been met with criticism as the NHTSA has largely avoided regulations that peer counties have used to make human mistakes less deadly, such as automated traffic enforcement, limiting deadly vehicle size and design and requiring speed governors to prevent speeding.
Tweet from David Zipper, Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Taubman Center for State and Local Government
In response to rising traffic fatalities, some U.S. cities are working to design a safer transportation system where mistakes are less deadly through a Vision Zero strategy. In December 2019, the Denton City Council passed a resolution to adopt a Vision Zero action plan.
The City is currently gathering and analyzing speed and crash data to develop a targeted action plan to reduce severe and fatal crashes in the City of Denton.
Last year was the second-deadliest on Texas roads since TxDOT began keeping statistics in 1940. In 2021, 4,480 Texans were killed in traffic crashes, an average of 12 per day. In 2019, TxDOT stated that it has embraced a goal to eliminate traffic fatalities on Texas roads by 2050. However, TxDOT continues to design roadways similar to the ones where this weekend’s crashes occurred: wide, fast and difficult to safely cross.
TxDOT is planning $2.2 billion in projects to make roads wider and add more high-speed roads across the City of Denton. None of the planned projects include narrowing roads or designing roads for slower, safer driving speeds.
TxDOT’s $2.2 billion in planned roadway projects in the Denton area. Open full report
Since 2012, 63 percent of all crashes in the City of Denton have occurred on a TxDOT road, according to data retrieved from TxDOT’s C.R.I.S. Query Tool. However, TxDOT roads are the site of 69 percent of serious crashes and 86 percent of fatal crashes in the City of Denton.
If you are concerned about safety on TxDOT roads in Denton, contact one or both of the following:
Contact the Texas Transportation Commission, which governs TxDOT.
Share your concerns with your state representative and state senator. Use Texas’ Who Represents Me? tool to learn who represents you in the Texas House and Texas Senate.
