Loop 289 Dominates Every List of Lubbock’s Worst Intersections
Most Lubbock residents think it’s a pretty easy place to drive around. The street grid is famously logical—numbered streets run east-west, avenues run north-south, and if you know your alphabet, you can find Avenue Q without a map. The land is flat, the roads are wide. As compared to Dallas or Houston, rush hour is barely an inconvenience.
And yet, Lubbock County recorded 5,958 crashes in 2024, including 45 fatal crashes that killed 51 people. With a county population of about 329,000, this is about 15.5 traffic deaths per 100,000 residents—which is noticeably higher than the statewide rate of 13 per 100,000, particularly in a year when Texas saw fatalities decrease overall.
So, where does the trouble actually happen? Let’s look at four separate datasets from 2012 through 2025: TxDOT crash records, City of Lubbock traffic engineering data, statewide intersection rankings, and one other major factor. The Loop.
It’s the Loop
Loop 289 is Lubbock’s biggest problem road, and it isn’t close.
Four Loop intersections dominate every list. Loop 289 at Slide Road ranked 25th out of 82,846 intersections statewide in TxDOT 2025 crash data, with 32 crashes and 29 injuries in a single year. University Avenue came in at 26th (31 crashes, 26 injuries), Quaker Avenue at 30th (30 crashes), 29 injuries), and the Marsha Sharp Freeway interchange at 38th (28 crashes, 28 injuries).
These aren’t new problems. Back in 2020, the same four locations produced the city’s highest raw crash counts—139 at Slide, 103 at Quaker, 97 at University, and 84 at Marsha Sharp. Further still, a statewide ranking based on 2012-2015 collision data had Loop 289 at Slide at number 17 in all of Texas. Lubbock placed 26 intersections in that study’s top 279, which is a striking figure for a city with a population of 273,000.
Over thirteen years and four different datasets, the same handful of interchanges keep appearing.
What makes these areas so dangerous?
The Loop’s danger isn’t mysterious once you look at how it’s built. Texas highways run continuous frontage roads alongside the main lanes. Those frontage roads meet cross streets at ordinary intersections with regular signals. Therefore, at Slide, Quaker, or University, you have drivers exiting at 60+ miles per hour and decelerating into a traffic light, while other drivers are accelerating from a dead stop to merge back onto a highway—all within a few hundred feet, and all crossing paths with people simply trying to enter a shopping center.
This combination of high speed differential and heavy turning volume is what generates crashes. Slide and Quaker, in particular, carry some of the densest retail traffic in West Texas. University adds the Texas Tech students and staff, game day crowds, and pedestrians into the same mix.
Is there anything the raw numbers miss?
Yes. And it’s worth understanding: Crash counts and crash risk are not the same thing. The Loop 289 intersections carry enormous volumes of traffic, so some of the high numbers reflect how many cars pass through.
When the City of Lubbock Traffic Engineering Department adjusted crashes for traffic volume to produce a crash rate, a different location came out on top.
The worst spots in the city by this metric were:
| Rank | Intersection | Crash rate |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | The weave where the eastbound Marsha Sharp Freeway frontage road meets the northbound I-27 frontage road | 5.781 |
| 2nd | 50th Street at the southbound I-27 frontage road | 4.212 |
| 3rd | 34th Street at the southbound West Loop 289 frontage | 4.013 |
| 4th | Clovis Road at Landmark Lane | 3.472 |
| 5th | 4th Street at Frankford Ave. | 3.4 |
You might notice a pattern. Four of these five areas are frontage road conflicts. Per car passing through, the freeway-to-freeway weaves are the most dangerous pavement in Lubbock; they just don’t top the raw count lists because fewer cars use them.
Interpreting the rest of the list
Beyond the Loop and frontage roads, a few arterials earn their reputations. Milwaukee Avenue at 82nd Street logged 88 crashes in 2020. That’s the only non-Loop location in that year’s top five, and it’s a fast-growing southwest corridor where retail development outpaced the road design. 50th Street at Slide Road ranked 37th statewide on the 2012 to 2015 data. Loop 289 at Indiana Avenue (42nd) and at 19th Street (45th) round things out.
It’s important to note that there’s no single official ranking of the most dangerous roads in Lubbock. TxDOT publishes county and city totals, but not intersection leaders. A comprehensive list will stitch together studies that used different years, different radii, and different definitions. The numbers describe real patterns, but they aren’t precisely comparable to one another.
Even so, the pattern is consistent. If you drive in Lubbock, your risk isn’t spread evenly across the road grid; it’s concentrated at about a dozen spots where fast roads meet slower ones. The city’s Comprehensive Safety Action Plan, in development since 2024, exists largely because those 24 people killed or seriously injured in 2023 were generally in the same few spots. Knowing where those hazardous spots are can keep you safer while driving on Lubbock roads.
Most dangerous roads in Lubbock, Texas
The chart below is ranked using the following methodology:
- First by how many independent datasets flag them,
- Then by crash volume,
- Then by published crash rate.
A blank cell indicates that particular dataset did not cover that location, not that there were zero crashes.
| Rank | Intersection | Corridor | 2025 crashes | 2025 injuries | 2020 crashes | 2025 statewide rank | 2012-15 statewide rank | City crash rate (2014) | Why it makes the list |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Loop 289 & Slide Road | Loop 289 (South/West Loop) | 32 | 29 | 139 | 25 | 17 | Tops the 2025 TxDOT CRIS intersection ranking for Lubbock and the 2020 count; #17 in Texas on 2012-15 data. High-speed loop traffic meeting a major retail arterial. | |
| 2 | Loop 289 & Quaker Ave. | Loop 289 (South Loop) | 30 | 29 | 103 | 30 | 28 | Second-highest 2020 count; consistently top five locally across every dataset. | |
| 3 | Loop 289 & University Ave. | Loop 289 (South Loop) | 31 | 26 | 97 | 26 | 34 | Third in 2020 counts, #26 statewide in 2025. Heavy Texas Tech-area traffic. | |
| 4 | Loop 289 & Marsha Sharp Freeway | Loop 289 / US 82 | 28 | 28 | 84 | 38 | 21 | Freeway-to-freeway interchange with weaving frontage-road movements; #21 in Texas on 2012-15 data. | |
| 5 | Milwaukee Ave. & 82nd St. | Milwaukee Ave. (SW Lubbock) | 88 | 88 crashes in 2020; the only non-Loop location in the 2020 top five. Fast-growing southwest retail corridor. | |||||
| 6 | Marsha Sharp Freeway EB frontage & I-27 NB frontage | Marsha Sharp Freeway / I-27 | 5.781 | Highest crash rate ever published by City Traffic Engineering (5.781). Short merge/weave between two freeways. | |||||
| 7 | 50th St. & I-27 SB frontage | I-27 / 50th St. | 4.212 | Second-highest city crash rate (4.212). Frontage-road turning conflicts. | |||||
| 8 | 34th St. & W. Loop 289 SB frontage | W. Loop 289 / 34th St. | 4.013 | Third-highest city crash rate (4.013). | |||||
| 9 | 50th St. & Slide Road | 50th St. / Slide Road | 37 | #37 in Texas on 2012-15 data; major arterial-to-arterial crossing near retail. | |||||
| 10 | Loop 289 & Indiana Ave. | Loop 289 (South Loop) | 42 | #42 in Texas on 2012-15 data. | |||||
| 11 | Loop 289 & 19th St. | Loop 289 (West Loop) / 19th St. | 45 | #45 in Texas on 2012-15 data; main route to Texas Tech and Reese Center. | |||||
| 12 | Clovis Road & Landmark Lane | Clovis Road (US 84 Business) | 3.472 | Fourth-highest city crash rate (3.472). | |||||
| 13 | 4th St. & Frankford Ave. | 4th St. / Frankford Ave. | 3.400 | Fifth-highest city crash rate (3.400). |
Top Ten Most Dangerous Corridors in Lubbock
Here’s a list of the most dangerous corridors in Lubbock. A corridor is the designated strip of land that includes the roadway itself and its surrounding roadside areas, such as sidewalks, shoulders, and public right-of-way spaces.
| Rank | Corridor | Extent | Evidence | Time period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US 84 (including Clovis Road / Slaton Highway) | Shallowater through Lubbock to Slaton | Repeatedly identified as the deadliest road in Lubbock County. County-wide, 120 fatal crashes 2018-2020, with speeding in 31% and alcohol in 24%. Three of the six worst rural intersections are on US 84. | 2018-2020 | KFMX / MoneyGeek; Lubbock Lights |
| 2 | Loop 289 | Full 24-mi loop, worst on the South and West Loop | Four Loop 289 intersections made the 2025 statewide top 40; seven made the 2012-15 statewide top 50. Loop intersections supplied four of the five highest 2020 crash counts in the city. | 2012-2025 | TxDOT CRIS 2025 analysis; 2020 counts; 2012-15 ranking |
| 3 | Marsha Sharp Freeway (US 82) | I-27 west to Loop 289 and beyond | Its frontage-road interchanges with I-27 and Loop 289 produce both the single highest crash rate ever published by City Traffic Engineering and a top-40 statewide intersection in 2025. | 2014-2025 | City of Lubbock Traffic Engineering; TxDOT CRIS 2025 analysis |
| 4 | I-27 / frontage roads | North-south through Lubbock | Two of the city’s five highest crash-rate locations are I-27 frontage-road intersections (Marsha Sharp EB frontage, 50th St.). | 2014 | City of Lubbock Traffic Engineering |
| 5 | US 62/82 (Slaton Highway) | Southeast Lubbock County toward Slaton/Wolfforth | High-speed rural crossings flagged by the Sheriff’s Office; falls inside SPAG’s densest hot-spot cluster. | 2019-2023 | Lubbock Lights / LCSO; SPAG CSAP 2025 |
| 6 | Slide Road | 34th St. to 98th St. | Appears in two separate top-tier intersections (Loop 289 & Slide, 50th & Slide)—the busiest retail arterial in the city. | 2012-2025 | Multiple sources |
| 7 | University Ave. | Downtown south past Loop 289 | Loop 289 & University is top 30 statewide in 2025; heavy Texas Tech pedestrian and event traffic. | 2020-2025 | TxDOT CRIS 2025 analysis; 2020 counts |
| 8 | Quaker Ave. | 19th St. to 98th St. | Loop 289 & Quaker ranked #30 statewide in 2025 and second in the city in 2020. | 2020-2025 | TxDOT CRIS 2025 analysis; 2020 counts |
| 9 | Milwaukee Ave. | 4th St. to 114th St. | 82nd & Milwaukee logged 88 crashes in 2020, which is the fast-growing southwest edge of the city. | 2020 | 2020 counts |
| 10 | 50th St. | Across the city, worst at I-27 and Slide Road | Two separate high-ranking locations (50th & I-27 frontage, 50th & Slide). | 2012-2015 | City of Lubbock Traffic Engineering; 2012-15 ranking |
If you’ve been in a Lubbock car accident, you can contact a personal injury attorney who can guide you through a claim or a lawsuit to reach compensation for your injuries.
Sources:
TxDOT, Crashes and injuries by county, 2024
TxDOT, CRIS public query tool
Angel Reyes & Associates, Most Dangerous Intersections in Texas 2025
Dean Boyd, 5 Most Dangerous Intersections in Lubbock
Lubbock Lights, Worst intersections in Lubbock County
SPAG Comprehensive Safety Action Plan, June 2025
City of Lubbock Comprehensive Safety Action Plan
See our guide Choosing a personal injury attorney.