Downtown Fort Worth intersection tops city crash ranking

A new five-year analysis of Fort Worth crash records found Henderson Street at the Belknap-Weatherford one-way pair is the city’s most dangerous intersection. The report ranks the 10 worst intersections and highlights left turns, freeway frontage roads and after-dark crashes as major factors.

Why it matters: - Fort Worth’s worst intersections account for a concentrated share of serious harm, not just crashes. - The analysis points to specific fixes, including turn restrictions, lighting upgrades and signal changes, that could reduce injuries where the risk is highest. - The findings also give city leaders, TxDOT and the North Texas Tollway Authority a data set they can use to prioritize safety work.

What happened: - Patterson Law Group ranked every Fort Worth intersection using five years of Texas Department of Transportation crash records from 2021 through 2025. - Henderson Street at the Belknap and Weatherford one-way pair, on the west edge of downtown, ranked No. 1. - The intersection logged 197 police-reported crashes over the five-year period, including 73 with injuries. - The intersection had 51 crashes in 2025, the most recorded at any Fort Worth intersection in a single year. - The firm also released an interactive map of the 10 worst intersections. - The map is free for news outlets and public agencies to embed on their own sites.

The details: - The analysis covered 80,773 crashes inside Fort Worth city limits from January 2021 through December 2025. - Those crashes killed 603 people and left 2,679 with suspected serious injuries. - About 43 percent of crashes, or 34,776, happened at or approaching an intersection. - Intersection crashes killed 160 people. - Patterson Law Group ranked intersections with a Danger Score that weighs each crash by the most severe injury reported. - The 10 highest-ranked intersections produced 1,410 crashes in five years. - Someone was hurt in 493 of those crashes. - The 10 most dangerous intersections were Henderson St at Belknap/Weatherford; E Seminary Dr at I-35W; E Berry St at I-35W; Overton Ridge Blvd at Chisholm Trail Pkwy; Trinity Blvd at SH 360; S Hulen St at I-20 and Southwest Blvd; N Main St and NW 28th St; Crowley Rd and James Ave at I-20; W Risinger Rd and S Hulen St; and E Belknap St and Weatherford St at Grove St. - E Berry St at I-35W recorded 130 crashes, 45 injuries and 1 death. - Trinity Blvd at SH 360 recorded 142 crashes and 50 injuries. - E Belknap St and Weatherford St at Grove St recorded 143 crashes and 33 injuries. - The interactive map lets users click each of the 10 intersections to see yearly crash counts, left-turn crashes, red-light-style angle collisions, nighttime crashes, peak hour and pedestrian strikes. - The map also lets users zoom to street level to view the intersection itself. - The full analysis, map and downloadable data are available at the full analysis. - Reporters and public officials can request the complete 80,773-crash dataset and a breakdown of any single intersection by emailing travis@pattersonpersonalinjury.com. - Source data came from the Texas Department of Transportation Crash Records Information System, queried on Sept. 2, 2026. - The ranking grouped intersection-related crashes by GPS coordinates into clusters no more than 300 feet across. - Paired signals on opposite sides of a freeway or one-way pair were combined into a single intersection. - The weighting system assigned 10 points for fatal or suspected serious injury crashes, 3 points for suspected minor injury crashes, 1.5 points for possible injury crashes and 1 point for no-injury crashes. - CRIS includes only police-reported crashes with at least $1,000 in damage or an injury. - The ranking measures harm, not risk per vehicle, because traffic volume was not available.

Between the lines: - Left turns are the biggest single problem citywide, accounting for 31 percent of intersection crashes. - Left turns make up 40 percent of crashes among the top 10 intersections. - At W Risinger Rd and S Hulen St, 82 percent of crashes involved a left turn. - Five of the 10 worst intersections involve a city street crossing freeway frontage roads on I-35W, I-20, SH 360 or the Chisholm Trail Parkway. - Drivers leaving the freeway may still be carrying highway speed while cross-street drivers have to clear two wide signals back to back. - At the top-ranked Henderson Street intersection, crashes where a car going straight hits a car beside it turning left occur at 14 percent, nearly four times the citywide rate of 4 percent. - That pattern points to lane confusion on the one-way pair. - Crashes at N Main St and NW 28th St in the Stockyards rose faster than at any other top-10 intersection, climbing from 13 in 2021 to 48 in 2025. - The Stockyards increase is concentrated in weekday afternoon rush hour, while nearby Stockyards intersections have stayed flat. - Pedestrians were involved in 2 percent of Fort Worth crashes but 26 percent of the deaths. - Citywide, pedestrians were involved in 1,426 crashes and 157 deaths. - At intersections, pedestrians were involved in 506 crashes and 31 deaths. - About one-third of intersection crashes happen in dark or dusk conditions. - At the I-35W frontage roads, the dark-or-dusk share is closer to half. - The worst hour is 4 to 5 p.m., and the worst day is Friday, citywide and at intersections. - Travis Patterson said the data shows the fixes are often not mysterious, including green-arrow restrictions for heavy left-turn conflict points and better lighting where crashes cluster after dark.

What's next: - Patterson Law Group said it hopes to work with the City of Fort Worth, TxDOT and the North Texas Tollway Authority on fixes. - The firm is making the map and data available for public use and offering the full dataset on request. - The ranked intersections could help identify where turn restrictions, signal changes and lighting upgrades may deliver the fastest safety gains.

The bottom line: - Fort Worth’s deadliest intersections are clustered around downtown, freeway frontage roads and major arterial crossings, and the data suggests several are vulnerable to straightforward engineering fixes.