Texas Has Some of the Deadliest Highways for Holiday Traffic

It’s highly possible you’ll be hitting the highways next week to visit family for Thanksgiving, and whether you’re heading to Hill Country, Acadiana, or even to Minnesota for your Aunt Dottie’s famous kringle, here’s a research-based reminder that you should be ever vigilant in your defensive driving.  Texas has downright scary highways, y’all. 

Personal finance website ValuePenguin recently combed through lots of grim traffic data—tragically, there were 3,399 traffic fatalities on Thanksgiving and Christmas from 2015 to 2018, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration—and has identified the five deadliest highways for holiday traffic. 

Not to terrify you, but three—yes, three—of Texas’s finest are among the worst.

The deadliest highways for holiday traffic:

• I-10 (California to Florida)
• I-95 (Florida to Maine)
• I-80 (California to New Jersey)
• I-35 (Texas to Minnesota) 
• I-20 (Texas to South Carolina) 

These highways account for 15 percent of the holiday travel deaths on the entire National Highway System, and heavy traffic likely plays a huge part in that.Also, roughly one in every three fatal holiday-season traffic accidents involved a drunken driver.  But worse still?

When it comes to I-10, Harris County and many surrounding regions account for the deadliest stretches of highway in the country on Thanksgiving and Christmas.