Utah's Most Dangerous Roads

The records cover Salt Lake, Utah, Davis, Weber, Summit, Cache and Washington counties. Each crash was placed inside a city using the state's municipal boundaries, then matched to the nearest named street on the state road map, giving priority to the road the officer wrote in the report. Where a report names a road, the match agrees with it 89% of the time. Interstates and their ramps are tallied apart from streets, and crashes in private lots are set aside.

That process sorted 382,105 crashes: 290,854 matched to a named street, 81,829 on an interstate or ramp, 6,753 in private lots and 2,669 that could not be placed on a street. Across all of them, 8,973 crashes left someone dead or with a suspected serious injury, and 1,324 people were killed.

Streets, Not Freeways, Hold Most of the Deaths

Non-freeway roads carried 76.1% of the crashes and 1,086 of the deaths, 82.0%. A crash there was also more likely to be serious: 2.57% were serious or fatal, against 1.56% on interstates and ramps, where 209 people died. The crash mix differs as well. Off the freeways, side-impact (angle) crashes lead at 32.6% and rear-end crashes follow at 30.2%. Among serious crashes on those roads, 35.2% were angle crashes and 43.3% fall in the group UDOT codes as single-vehicle or not applicable, which includes a vehicle striking a pedestrian, a cyclist or a fixed object.

County by county, non-freeway roads logged these totals (crashes, serious or fatal crashes, deaths): Salt Lake 134,489, 3,058 and 452; Utah 60,668, 1,610 and 217; Davis 27,654, 681 and 79; Weber 25,969, 882 and 144; Washington 19,079, 665 and 102; Cache 18,042, 438 and 69; Summit 4,953, 155 and 23. The serious share was highest in Washington County (3.49%) and Weber County (3.40%) and lowest in Salt Lake County (2.27%). County totals include roads outside city limits.

The Ten City Stretches With the Most Crashes

A road that crosses several cities is counted separately in each, so this list ranks a road's stretch inside one city. Counts run from January 1, 2018 through August 4, 2025, and each city name links to that city's full ranking.

• 3500 South (SR-171), West Valley City — 3,150 crashes, 41 serious or fatal, 7 deaths. Only 1.3% were serious, below the 2.57% average for non-freeway roads, and its busiest junction, 2400 West, logged 243 crashes.
• Main Street (US-91), Logan — 2,561 crashes, 25 serious or fatal, 2 deaths. Rear-end collisions were 57.2% of them, and the junctions at Cache Valley Boulevard (135) and 1000 North (132) lead.
• State Street (US-89), Murray — 2,234 crashes, 48 serious or fatal, 6 deaths. The 4500 South junction alone had 341 crashes and 11 serious ones, and motorcycles were involved in 16 of the 48.
• State Street (US-89), Orem — 2,170 crashes, 55 serious or fatal, 7 deaths. Motorcycles were involved in 18 of the serious crashes, and 800 South was its busiest junction with 161.
• 7800 South, West Jordan — 2,021 crashes, 64 serious or fatal, 5 deaths. Its serious share was 3.17%, and yearly crashes fell from 379 in 2018 to 214 in 2024.
• Redwood Road (SR-68), Taylorsville — 2,011 crashes, 38 serious or fatal, 4 deaths. A driver left the scene in 17.5% of them, and 5400 South was the busiest junction with 196.
• Redwood Road (SR-68), West Valley City — 1,913 crashes, 43 serious or fatal, 8 deaths. Its junction with 3500 South had 381 crashes and 9 serious or fatal ones.
• University Avenue (US-189), Provo — 1,839 crashes, 47 serious or fatal, 2 deaths. Pedestrians were involved in 11 of the serious crashes.
• 5600 West (SR-172), West Valley City — 1,577 crashes, 29 serious or fatal, 6 deaths. Crashes fell from 307 in 2018 to 150 in 2024.
• Washington Boulevard (US-89), Ogden — 1,551 crashes, 67 serious or fatal, 16 deaths. Pedestrians were involved in 28 of the serious crashes.

The ten stretches hold 21,027 crashes. West Valley City appears three times, and two highways repeat: Redwood Road in Taylorsville and West Valley City, and State Street (US-89) in Murray and Orem, with US-89 returning as Washington Boulevard in Ogden. Volume and harm do not line up. 3500 South leads on crashes, but Washington Boulevard, tenth by crashes, had 67 serious or fatal crashes and 16 deaths, more than any other stretch on the list.

The Order Changes for Serious Crashes

Ranked by serious or fatal crashes instead, Washington Boulevard in Ogden comes first with 67, followed by 7800 South in West Jordan (64) and State Street (SR-9) in Hurricane (61), which reached that total on just 987 crashes, a 6.2% serious share. State Street in Orem (55) and Redwood Road in West Jordan (53) come next, then State Street in Murray and Redwood Road in Salt Lake City at 48 each. The Salt Lake City stretch of Redwood had 14 deaths.

Every City Ranked, County by County

Salt Lake County, with each city's street crashes: West Valley City (22,215), Salt Lake City (20,592), West Jordan (12,281), Sandy (10,055), Taylorsville (9,418), Murray (8,767), South Jordan (6,900), Millcreek (6,469), Draper (5,298), South Salt Lake (4,769), Midvale (4,732), Riverton (4,098), Kearns (4,069), Magna (3,259), Herriman (2,884), Cottonwood Heights (2,797), Bluffdale (1,971), Holladay (1,863).

Utah County: Orem (10,201), Provo (9,759), Lehi (7,484), Saratoga Springs (4,307), Spanish Fork (4,018), American Fork (3,944), Pleasant Grove (3,525), Springville (3,462), Eagle Mountain (1,878), Payson (1,739), Lindon (1,448). Davis County: Layton (7,187), Bountiful (3,348), Clearfield (3,235), Farmington (2,263), North Salt Lake (2,236), Kaysville (1,639), Centerville (1,486). Weber County: Ogden (9,898), Roy (3,797), South Ogden (2,185), West Haven (1,454). Washington County: St. George (12,494), Washington City (2,126), Hurricane (1,867). Cache County: Logan (9,466), North Logan (1,507). Summit County: Park City (2,184).

How the Cities Compare

Among the 57 cities with enough data for a ranking, Hurricane had the highest serious-or-fatal share on its streets (6.37%) and Cottonwood Heights the lowest (1.61%). Kearns had the highest hit-and-run share, 18.5% of street crashes against 8.6% across the seven counties, and Lindon the largest freeway share: 52.7% of its crashes were on I-15 or its ramps. Pedestrians were involved in 31.6% of Salt Lake City's serious street crashes, the highest share of the 57 and about double the seven-county 15.1%, while motorcycles were involved in 41.2% of Lindon's, against 21.7%. By count, Salt Lake City's streets had the most deaths (107), followed by West Valley City (84), Ogden (62), St. George (42) and West Jordan (36).

If a Utah Road Crash Hurt You

Utah auto policies carry personal injury protection, which pays at least $3,000 of your medical bills regardless of who was at fault (Utah Code § 31A-22-307). To claim pain and other general damages from the driver who hit you, the injury generally has to cross the line in § 31A-22-309, such as a broken bone, a permanent impairment or more than $3,000 in medical expenses, and that line does not apply to an uninsured motorist claim. A hit-and-run driver who is never found is treated as uninsured (§ 31A-22-305(2)(b)). Fault is divided under § 78B-5-818: your award drops by your share, and you recover only if the other parties' fault exceeds yours. Most injury lawsuits must be filed within four years (§ 78B-2-307), while a claim that a city or the state let a road become unsafe needs a written notice of claim within one year (§ 63G-7-402). Read how fault is proven, how to file a PIP claim and the deadline to sue, and see Utah's most dangerous intersections for the signals where pedestrians and cyclists are hit.

What a Claim Can Include

• Bills and lost pay: emergency care, surgery, therapy and prescriptions, the work you missed, and any lasting loss of earning ability.
• Pain and lost routines: the physical pain, the anxiety of driving again, and the parts of ordinary life an injury takes away.
• What comes later: treatment a doctor expects you to need, help at home, and the cost of living with an injury that does not fully heal.

Sources, Method and Limits

Crashes: UDOT's public crash records (Crash_Locations), all crash types in Salt Lake, Utah, Davis, Weber, Summit, Cache and Washington counties, January 1, 2018 through August 4, 2025, where the public series ends. Cities: UGRC municipal boundaries, with current lines applied to every year. Streets: UGRC's Utah Roads map. Serious or fatal means UDOT coded the crash Fatal or Suspected Serious Injury; deaths are the people killed. Comparisons are to these seven counties, not all of Utah. Driver and crash flags are what the investigating officer marked, not findings of fault. Property-damage crashes below Utah's reporting threshold are not in the records, so every count is a floor. Crashes per mile are not used because road lengths in the map are not reliable enough for it. Serious-injury counts for 2018 and 2019 look low in several cities, which may reflect how severity was coded, and Orem's 2019 records appear incomplete, so this page draws no trend from them.