A three-vehicle collision brought I-45 northbound to a standstill near E Tidwell Road on Tuesday afternoon, shutting down lanes and backing up traffic in the heat.
The crash happened at 12:57 PM, trapping multiple vehicles and forcing responding officers to close lanes while they worked the scene. Drivers caught in the backup faced a slow crawl as crews cleared the wreckage and debris from the roadway.
That stretch of I-45 North near Tidwell has become a frequent flashpoint for collisions. According to LocalTrafficAccidents.com data, the corridor logged 30 incidents in the past 30 days—13 of them major crashes like this one. Over the past 90 days, the same location recorded 86 total incidents, with 42 classified as major. The pattern extends further back: state crash records from the Texas Department of Transportation show 1,179 crashes within a quarter-mile of the location since January 2020.
Interestingly, most crashes at this intersection fall outside typical rush hour. The data shows the single busiest crash hour at I-45 North and Tidwell is between 2 and 3 PM, when eight crashes occurred over the sample period. Saturdays have historically been the highest-incident day at the location, with 12 crashes recorded in the 90-day window.
When officers investigate crashes here, speed control emerges as a recurring factor. Contributing factors as recorded by the investigating officer, per TxDOT CRIS, show that "Failed To Control Speed" accounts for 532 crashes at the corridor since January 2020—a dominant pattern across the location's crash history.
Conditions at the time of this collision were clear—few clouds and 95 degrees—so weather was not a factor in the incident itself.
The road cleared following standard incident response, though the backup took time to dissipate given the afternoon heat and the number of vehicles involved. Drivers heading through I-45 North in the Tidwell area should remain cautious; this intersection's collision frequency warrants extra attention, particularly during afternoon hours.
This report was produced by LTA's editor-designed production system under the executive editorial direction of Dennis R. Mundy, Executive Editor. The system combines our proprietary data pipeline with AI-assisted drafting to deliver verified incident coverage to LTA's editorial standards.