The Texas roadways are already deadly, and they’re even more so around the holidays.
“We know that the Thanksgiving holiday is one where a lot of people will be on the roads,” says Matt Zavadsky, MedStar Chief Transformation Officer. “As we had sort of predicted, the heavy travel weekend led to a number of motor vehicle crashes.”
Zavadsky says MedStar crews responded to more than 200 car crashes Thursday thorough Sunday in Tarrant County. Seven people were ejected from their vehicles, and two were declared dead at the scene. In Dallas, five people were killed in three separate car crashes the night before Thanksgiving alone.
Zavadsky says the fact that not as many people have been out traveling since the start of the pandemic could have contributed to the spike in crashes. And so could have a number of other things, like driving distracted, tired or impaired.
“With this level of activity over the first major holiday weekend, we are concerned going into the other holidays. Specifically Christmas and New Years,” Zavadsky says. “People are going out … they’re traveling to see family for the first time in a couple of years. So we really encourage people to start planning now.”
According to the Texas Department of Transportation, about 10 people die every day on Texas roadways. The state is on track to see more than 4,000 roadway fatalities this year— that’s the most in nearly four decades.
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