Plano traffic crashes dip slightly, but injury and fatal deaths rise

Plano’s traffic picture improved only slightly in 2025, and the city’s own numbers show why officials are not calling it a win. Total crashes fell to 5,356 from 5,495 the year before, a 2.5% drop, but injury crashes climbed to 1,603 and fatal crashes increased to 17.

That mixed result matters in a city where the crash rate still sat at 17.89 crashes per 1,000 residents in 2025. Plano’s year-end police report shows the city has moved down from 2024’s peak, but it remained near the top of its recent range, with 5,328 crashes in 2023 and 4,451 in 2022. The overall decline did not reach the categories that matter most to families and commuters when a wreck turns serious.

The Plano Police Department tracks traffic safety differently from a simple year-to-year snapshot. Its public-safety dashboard measures total crashes, injury crashes and fatality crashes against a rolling five-year average, and the department places traffic safety alongside crime rate, timely service and quality of service as one of four organizational performance measures. That framework suggests city leaders are looking not just for fewer fender benders, but for fewer people hurt and killed on Plano roads.

The danger is not spread evenly across the city. U.S. 75 had more crash hot spots in Plano than the Dallas North Tollway, even though the tollway carries more traffic. That difference points to corridor-specific trouble rather than a broad citywide problem, and it helps explain why the department says its traffic-safety strategy relies on enforcement, education and partnership with the community. One of its stated initiatives is reducing crashes at high-risk intersections through increased red-light enforcement.

Plano police chief Ed Drain, who began his law-enforcement career with the department in 1994 and worked in Traffic Investigations, has emphasized the need to read the data over time rather than treat one year as the final word. That message came into sharper focus at the April 30 joint meeting of the Plano City Council and the Plano ISD Board of Trustees at the Plano ISD Sockwell Center, where city and school leaders heard a transportation picture that was better in the aggregate, but still troubling where the injuries and deaths occurred.

The crash numbers are built on the statewide reporting system maintained by the Texas Department of Transportation through reports filed under Texas Transportation Code Chapter 550. For Plano, the takeaway is clear: the city made some progress, but the streets that keep producing serious wrecks still need targeted fixes.