Harris County crash statistics, 2015-2025

Harris County recorded 107,472 traffic crashes and 503 deaths in 2025, according to the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). Another 2,630 people were seriously injured.¹ Deaths fell 13.1% from 579 in 2024, the highest count in the 2015-2025 series.

Harris County traffic deaths by year

Deaths ranged from 392 to 457 a year from 2015 to 2019. They rose to 499 in 2020, when the crash count fell 14.6% during the pandemic, and to 567 in 2021. They stayed above 530 through 2024.² The 2025 total of 503 was the fewest since 2020, when 499 people died.

The crash count moved less. It stayed between 108,000 and 117,000 in every year except 2020 and 2025.^1,2 Deaths rose relative to crashes: the county had one death for every 285 crashes in 2015 and one for every 214 in 2025 (Texas Mobility Outlook’s arithmetic from TxDOT’s county rows).

Harris County’s share of Texas crashes and deaths

Harris County had 19.9% of Texas’s reportable crashes in 2025 but 13.3% of its traffic deaths: 503 of 3,769.^1,3 TxDOT’s tables do not explain the gap. Statewide, rural roads had about 27% of crashes but half of all deaths in 2025. That pattern would give a largely urban county a smaller share of deaths than of crashes, though Texas Mobility Outlook has not tested it county by county. The statewide split is on Texas traffic fatalities.

Harris County traffic deaths by road type

City streets carry the most deaths in Harris County: 198 in 2025, or 39.4% of the total. Interstates had 134, or 26.6%.⁴ Interstate deaths rose 57.6% from 85 in 2015, a faster increase than the county total. Deaths on U.S. and state highways fell to 58 in 2025, the lowest in the series.⁵

TxDOT reports road classes, not named highways. Its “interstate” column covers all Interstate highways in Harris County. TxDOT does not list the routes, but they include I-10, I-45 and I-610 and, by Texas Mobility Outlook’s reading of TxDOT’s route codes, the I-69 sections of US 59. Houston’s most dangerous highways reviews what published rankings say about individual freeways.

Crashes involving commercial vehicles killed 43 people in Harris County in 2025; Houston truck crash statistics has that series. Work zones accounted for 1,525 crashes and 14 deaths, up from 10 deaths in 2024.^6,7

How Harris County compares with other Texas counties

Harris County had 503 deaths in 2025, more than Dallas (274) and Bexar (190) counties combined.¹ It accounted for 66.4% of the 758 deaths in the eight-county Greater Houston region (computed from TxDOT county rows). Five of the eight Greater Houston counties had more deaths in 2025 than in 2024: Fort Bend, Brazoria, Liberty, Chambers and Waller. Harris, Montgomery and Galveston had fewer, as did all four large counties outside the region.

Raw counts do not account for population. The Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) publishes a rate that does: from 2018 to 2024, Harris County averaged 61.8 fatal and serious-injury crashes a year per 100,000 residents. Chambers (129.4) and Waller (127.5) counties had about twice that rate, and Liberty County had 105.2.⁸

Greater Houston regional figures from H-GAC

H-GAC, the region’s metropolitan planning organization, counted 839 traffic deaths in its eight counties in 2022, 779 in 2023 and 767 in 2024.⁹ Its figures use TxDOT data as of January 2025, so they differ from the sum of TxDOT’s county rows. H-GAC says the region had nearly 20% of Texas traffic deaths from 2018 to 2024.⁸

Severe crashes are concentrated. H-GAC’s regional high injury network shows that 89% of crashes causing deaths or serious injuries from 2018 to 2024 occurred on less than 14% of road miles.⁸ In an average year in that period, 760 people were killed in the region and 3,725 suffered life-altering injuries.¹⁰

Limits of the data

• Earlier years can change. TxDOT reissues past years as late reports arrive. The 2025 figures reflect reports processed as of April 7, 2026; 2015 to 2024 reflect April 9, 2025.
• No corridor detail. The published tables do not break out deaths by named road. That requires a custom query of TxDOT’s Crash Records Information System (CRIS).
• City and county overlap. TxDOT counted 293 deaths inside Houston city limits in 2025, a number equal to 58% of the Harris County total. The city and county tables are separate tabulations, so the share is approximate. See City of Houston crash statistics.