If it seems like the roads of Texas are crawling with 18-wheelers and that the accidents are getting worse, it’s because they are. For over a decade, Texas has topped all other states in fatal accidents involving large trucks and 18-wheelers, and the gap between Texas and the next closest states continues to widen. This is no anomaly in the data; it’s a trend.

According to summaries compiled from the Texas Department of Transportation’s CRIS database, the number of commercial motor vehicle and 18-wheeler accidents in Texas is now in the tens of thousands annually, with fatal accidents in the hundreds. Federal statistics (FMCSA and NHTSA) correlate with this assessment and verify that Texas is alone at the top of the heap when it comes to fatal truck accidents.

The Hard Numbers: What the Recent Years Look Like

Let’s talk specifics instead of “in recent year.”

• According to federal data for 2023, Texas had the most fatalities from fatal crashes involving large trucks of any state in the nation. Texas had more than 500 deaths from large truck crashes that year, and the next state, California, was significantly behind.
• Summaries based on TxDOT data for 2024 indicate approximately 39,000 to 40,000 commercial motor vehicle crashes in Texas, with approximately 550 to 600 fatal crashes and more than 1,600 serious injury crashes. This is approximately 11 to 13% of all fatal large truck crashes in the United States during that year, from one state alone.
• Analyses conducted in early 2025 using the TxDOT CRIS database indicate more than 30,000 commercial truck and 18-wheeler crashes, with approximately 400 or more fatal truck crashes, with approximately 1 in 4 truck crashes resulting in some level of injury and approximately 1 in 10 resulting in the most severe injuries or death.

And this is just the recent picture. One long-term look at truck statistics in Texas points out that in a little over ten years, the number of fatal truck crashes in Texas has nearly doubled, while other states have had relatively flat trends. During this entire period, Texas has been at or near the top, and in the last few years, it has been the definite number one.

When Did Texas Start Leading the Nation?

If you go back in time with the trend lines for TxDOT and NHTSA data, the picture is depressingly straightforward: by the early 2010s, Texas had already taken the lead in fatal large truck crashes and has, for all intents and purposes, not relinquished it since. “The last decade” is more than just a figure of speech, as Texas has been leading every year with more fatalities in truck crashes than any other state.

By the late 2010s and into the 2020s, the lead had grown even further. A typical FMCSA-based summary will tell you that Texas had more than 550 fatalities in large truck crashes in a given year, compared to the mid-300s in California and the low 300s in Florida. This means that Texas was not just leading but leading by a margin of several hundred fatalities per year.

Why Texas Has So Many 18-Wheeler Crashes

There isn’t a single “smoking gun.” It’s the way Texas hauls freight, where we haul it, and how much risk we are willing to accept on our roads.

• Freight corridor for the country: Texas is the crossroads of the country’s freight. We have the big north-south and east-west interstates, border crossings with Mexico, Gulf Coast ports, and giant warehouse and distribution centers. A massive amount of the country’s goods, fuels, and materials flow through Texas in 18-wheelers every hour of every day.
• Oil and gas: Texas fuels the country. The Permian Basin, Eagle Ford, and other oil fields mean constant heavy truck traffic to and from rural counties hauling oil, sand, pipe, chemicals, equipment, and personnel. TxDOT and independent analyses of CRIS data show that a very large percentage of fatal rural truck crashes occur on farm-to-market and oilfield access roads that were never intended to handle this level of truck traffic and weight. That’s part of the cost of Texas helping to keep the rest of the country fueled with oil and gas.
• Rural roads, urban congestion, same problem: Reviews based on TxDOT data show that about 70% of fatal truck crashes in Texas are now occurring on rural roads – two-lane highways, FM roads, and county roads with narrow lanes, no shoulders, and long EMS response times. Meanwhile, urban counties suLifch as Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, and Midland/Ector report thousands of crashes involving commercial vehicles annually, with dozens of fatalities in each urban area.
• Profit over safety: Meanwhile, the same old story is playing out behind the scenes: trucking and oilfield carriers with tired drivers, overloaded trucks, substandard maintenance, and corner-cutting training and supervision to keep the oil and freight flowing. Federal enforcement cases against habitual violators of safety regulations have actually declined in recent years.

In other words: “Texas is keeping the lights on and the shelves full in America, but we’re doing it with a freight system that propels 80,000-pound trucks down roads at a speed our infrastructure and enforcement have not been able to match.”

What These Crashes Actually Do to People

The numbers are one thing; the impact on families is another. CRIS-based reports for the past few years reveal thousands of injury crashes and hundreds of deaths in Texas each year involving commercial trucks and 18-wheelers. The injuries that come into my office as a result of these crashes are not fender bender injuries:

• Traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, and orthopedic injuries that alter the future of a person’s life.
• Loss of earning capacity when a working person simply can’t do what they used to do.
• Lifetime care needs, from home health care and rehabilitation to adaptive equipment and medication.
• Wrongful death claims when a family loses a wage earner, caregiver, spouse, or child due to a crash that should never have occurred.

In far too many of these cases, the trucking or oilfield company is on the ground within hours, building its defense while the family is still trying to survive surgery.

Why Someone Involved in an 18-Wheeler Collision Should Call Me

An 18-wheeler case in Texas is not “just a big car wreck.” The physics are different, the injuries are different, the regulations are different, and the defense is different. These cases are about details: hours of service, electronic data recorders, onboard cameras, dispatch communications, maintenance records, driver qualification files, and the company’s own safety policies and shortcuts. If that evidence is not preserved and developed, it’s gone.

This is what I can bring to the table for someone injured in an 18-wheeler accident in Texas:

• Decades of experience in the courtroom trying serious injury and death cases, including truck and oilfield cases, in counties throughout this state.
• An understanding of how these companies operate: how they dispatch, how they pressure their drivers, and how they cut corners—and how to show that to a jury.
• Access to the right experts: accident reconstruction, trucking safety, human factors, and medical—to simplify a complex case so that twelve people can understand it in a jury box.
• A willingness to try the case. The trucking companies and their insurance companies know which lawyers are trial lawyers and which lawyers are not. That’s important when it’s time to talk about full and fair compensation.

If you or your loved ones have been struck by an 18-wheeler or oilfield truck, you are entering a battle that you did not choose to fight. You do not have to enter this battle alone.

If you would like me to consider a possible 18-wheeler or oilfield truck case, give me a call at 409-813-1111 or contact me at https://www.claydugas.com I will examine the facts and let you know what I see, and if I take the case, my staff will move quickly to secure the evidence before it is gone forever.