Route Summary
This route offers some quintessential East Texas scenery, featuring a mix of heavily wooded areas populated with beautiful pine trees, rolling farmland, and Lake Palestine. This scenic ride has low traffic and lots of sweeping corners.
This route had fatal and incapacitating crashes between 2010 – 2022. In Texas, drivers are not assigned “at fault” in a crash, but law enforcement can assign ‘factors or conditions’ that contributed or may have contributed to a crash. Multiple ‘crash factors and conditions’ can be assigned to one, some, or all vehicles involved in a crash.
The following tables represent data extracted from the Texas Department of Transportation’s Crash Records Information System (TxDOT’s CRIS).
| Safety (2010-2022) | |
|---|---|
| Crashes | |
| Fatalities | |
| Serious Injuries | |
| Top Weather Crash Condition | |
| Top Lighting Crash Condition | |
| Top Road Crash Condition | |
Crash Narrative Summary
The following list is a summary of the crash events and conditions that have been described by officers investigating crashes along this route. The investigating officer provides his/her opinion of how the crash happened and will emphasize or explain, as necessary, any pertinent facts that are not fully explained elsewhere on the crash report. This section is meant to supplement the above data tables by providing further insight and “clues” into what factors and conditions contributed or may have contributed to crashes along this route.
- 50% of crashes occurred on a curve. In these crashes, riders were traveling at an unsafe speed for the roadway condition, left the roadway, and veered into a ditch or dry creek bed.
- 50% of crashes were single-vehicle. Contrary to popular belief, most severe motorcycle crashes do not occur in a collision with another vehicle at an intersection. A rider is more likely to be involved in a single motorcycle road-way departure crash than in an intersection related crash.
- In multi-vehicle crashes, a vehicle failed to yield the right of way while turning left to a motorcyclist.
- 67% of motorcycle operators did not have a proper Motorcycle license at the time of crash. Motorcycle training courses are taught at three different levels. The beginner course is for new riders to learn the basics and acquire their Class M endorsement. The intermediate course was designed for returning riders who already own a motorcycle who have riding experience, but never obtained their motorcycle license. The advanced course is designed for experienced riders to improve their skills.