See the deadliest roads and intersections in the Fresno, Clovis area in this interactive map
Fresno County had more than 4,700 traffic collisions reported over a three-year period from 2018 through 2020. Those crashes claimed the lives of almost 428 people and injured 287 others.
The Fresno Bee’s analysis of data collected by UC Berkeley’s Transportation Injury Mapping System shows that Highway 180 had the most fatal collisions during the three-year span from one end of the highway near Mendota among the sprawling farms of western Fresno County to its terminus in Kings Canyon National Park, high in the Sierra Nevada range.
Whether on two-lane portions of the route such as Whitesbridge Road or Kings Canyon Road, or where its multi-lane highway travels through the city of Fresno, a total of 23 collisions on the road or its on- or off-ramps killed 28 people.
Among all incidents countywide, the dead included 106 pedestrians, 19 bicyclists and 47 motorcyclists. Alcohol was considered a factor in at least 100 of the fatal crashes, according to the U.S. Berkeley data.
Highway 41 is a multi-lane freeway from the San Joaquin River south through the city of Fresno. But it’s south of Fresno, where part of it is a divided highway with stop signals at key intersections before squeezing down to a two-lane road — and that has proven particularly deadly.
Of 22 fatal crashes on the highway through Fresno County, 13 have taken place on the roughly 22-mile stretch between Highway 99 and the Kings County line. In those crashes, 16 people were killed and 14 others injured.
Seven of those incidents – and nine of the fatalities – were on the unwidened six-mile segment of the road between the Kings County line at Excelsior Avenue and Elkhorn Avenue. That’s a part of the road that Assemblyman Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, has dubbed a “death trap” as plans by Caltrans to widen the section were delayed. In May 2021, Caltrans indicated that the 41 widening was back on its drawing board.
Another notorious stretch of road is Friant Road and MIllerton Road between Fresno and the Table Mountain Casino near Millerton Lake. During the three-year period, nine separate incidents claimed 12 lives and injured seven people.
Within the city of Fresno, not counting county islands that dot parts of northwest, central and southeast areas, there were 1,501 reported traffic collisions, according the UC Berkeley data. Of those, 131 of the crashes resulted in 137 fatalities and 76 injuries.
Among the dead were 66 pedestrians, seven bicyclists and 13 people on motorcycles. Alcohol was involved in 45 of the crashes
Shields Avenue, which runs east-west through central Fresno, suffered 10 of those fatal collisions from just west of Highway 99 to Highway 168.
About half of the fatal crashes in the city were either at intersections of two streets or within 100 feet of intersections.
