Most Dangerous Intersections in Nashville

Posted in Car accidents on February 8, 2017

Our firm is dedicated to helping people recover from serious injuries. However, our commitment to the safety of our community led us to ask; how can we help people before they need to step foot in our office? We wanted to find out where Nashville residents are exposed to the highest risk of collision and injury when on our city’s roads and highways.

So, we teamed with the data analysis and visualization experts at 1point21 Interactive to identify the most dangerous intersections in the greater Nashville area. We analyzed over 37,000 collision records from 2015, identified 61 high risk intersections, then calculated crash and injury rates for each based on annual traffic volume and ranked them accordingly. Below are the results of our study.

Key Findings

• Hickory Hollow Parkway & MT View Road, the most dangerous intersection in the Nashville area, has both the highest crash rate and (by nearly double) the highest injury rate, while having the lowest traffic volume on the list.
• Despite having the highest number of overall crashes, Harding Place & Nolensville Pike ranked 23rd overall when traffic volume was taken into account.
• At the same time, Bell Road & Murfreesboro Pike was the location of the most injuries, and ranks 3rd most dangerous overall.
• Ten intersections were located along Old Hickory Boulevard, the most of any street in the study, followed by Bell Road with Eight and Murfreesboro Pike with seven.
• While more than half of the 61 intersections were located within the city of Nashville, four of the top five and eight of the top twelve are found in Antioch. Here is the rest of the breakdown by area (as noted by crash reports): Nashville – 33  Antioch – 16  Madison – 9  Hermitage – 3
• In 2015, there were: 2,716 crashes, 1,128 injuries, 9 fatalities, and 554 hit and runs at the 61 intersections on our list.
• The low overall number of fatalities at these intersections follows national fatality trends. In 2015, only 24 percent of all U.S. traffic fatalities occurred at intersections. In fact, if you expand the list to the 588 intersections used in our initial risk assessment, the number of fatalities rests at 17 in total.

The Most Dangerous Intersections in the Nashville Area

*Rates are expressed per 10 million vehicles that pass through each intersection. Rankings are based on crash and injury rates, with injury rate more heavily weighted. More on this in the methodology.

Initial Risk Assessment

In order to identify our most dangerous intersections, we first had to find raw collision volume for each. We started the process by parsing over 37,000 collision records and ended up with a list of 588 intersections with ten or more collisions. Next, we calculated a Risk Index Score (RIS) based on number of crashes, injuries, fatalities and hit and run collisions at each one. This allowed us to zero in on high collision volume intersections as a starting point for our study.

Exposure Analysis

Raw collision data alone can’t tell you everything, however.  Taking exposure into account (the number of people exposed to those # of crashes/injuries) helps give us a much more complete picture. We accounted for exposure by calculating crash and injury rates for the 61 intersections with the highest RIS (over 50.0 in this case) using traffic volume data obtained from the Tennessee Department of Transportation. This allowed us to compare larger and smaller, busier and more lightly trafficked intersections with a greater degree of accuracy.

Raw Collision Numbers and Risk Index Score

The table below shows the raw collision volumes and RIS for the initial 588 intersections.

*Note: Initially, we identified 63 intersections with an RIS over 50.0.  However, two were located on Highway ramps, therefore we did not include them in our exposure analysis.

Methodology & Data Sources

• Crash/Injury for each intersection were calculated algorithmically using database management software.
• Risk Index Score (RIS) formula weighted injuries and fatalities more heavily that overall crashes.
• RIS formula = Crash (1) + Injury (5) + Fatality(10) + Hit and Runs (1)
• The rankings reflect the 60 intersections with the highest RIS and are ordered based on car crash rate and injury rate per 10 million vehicles, with injury rate weighted heavier than overall crash rate.
• Collision data sourced by request to the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT)
• Traffic Volume data manually gathered via TDOT website.