Texas crash records place 6 PM at the top of the listed hours for reported crashes involving a death or suspected serious injury. TxDOT records used in this analysis list 2,927,154 reported crashes in Texas from 2022-01-01 through 2026-08-31, subject to the filters described in the methods. The 10 hours shown here are ordered by fatal or suspected serious-injury crashes. 6 PM recorded 192,956 crashes, including 5,621 fatal or suspected serious-injury crashes and 987 fatal crashes.
That result differs from the pattern for all reported crashes. 5 PM logged the largest crash count among the hours shown, while 6 PM had the higher count of crashes involving a death or suspected serious injury. 5 PM recorded 236,441 crashes, including 5,451 fatal or suspected serious-injury crashes and 746 fatal crashes.
Severe crashes remain prominent into the evening
The records do not point to just a late-afternoon pattern. 7 PM, 8 PM and 9 PM also appear among the leading hours for fatal or suspected serious-injury crashes, extending the concentration beyond the end of the traditional workday. From 1 PM through 6:59 PM, the records list 1,222,829 crashes—41.8% of the 2,927,154 crashes in the analysis.
9 PM provides a different severity contrast: although its overall crash count was well below the late-afternoon leaders, it recorded more fatal crashes than 6 PM. 9 PM recorded 1,132 fatal crashes compared with 987 for 6 PM—about 1.1 times the count. This comparison is between the categories shown.
These are reported crash counts, not measures of an individual's chance of crashing at a particular hour. The records do not account for how many people, vehicles or trips were on Texas roads at each hour, and they cannot establish why the hourly patterns occurred.