Orange County Dangerous Intersections and Accident Statistics

We can take plenty of insights from the Orange County street and intersection accident statistics collected above. Some of the details revealed might be expected, while others are surprising.

We can see that the top-10 intersections with the most accidents are located across five different cities: Anaheim, Santa Ana, Fullerton, Huntington Beach, and Costa Mesa. These cities are among the top-8 cities in Orange County in terms of population. It stands to reason that busier areas with greater traffic volumes would have more accidents.

For example, the intersection of Edinger Avenue and Beach Boulevard, in Huntington Beach, is joint second in terms of accident numbers and top of the table of most injuries. This area sees a huge volume of traffic, sitting next to a major shopping area, as well as the on/off ramps of the I-405 freeway at its main entrance to the city. It is no wonder that such intersections become accident black spots.

In terms of fatal collisions, our statistics show that many occur on or near freeways. Crashes are common at freeway entrances and exits, due to the high speeds of vehicles, as well as drivers attempting to merge across lanes or enter traffic. When crashes occur at high speeds, fatalities are far more common.

Our analysis of the streets with the most total accident numbers also reveals a numerical correlation. Streets such as Harbor Boulevard and Beach Boulevard feature prominently on this list, and these are major roads spanning dozens of miles through the heart of Orange County. It is natural that these longer roads will be hit by higher accident counts.

Many roads across the U.S. are built in straight lines, in gridded formats. This is the case in most areas of Orange County too, and most accident hotspots occur in these gridded areas. It is interesting to note that some of the newer areas of Irvine were built with deliberately curved streets to naturally slow traffic and prevent accidents. While Irvine has the third highest population in Orange County, it does not appear on any of the lists above.