Sam Houston Tollway northbound crash at Briar Forest

A crash backed up the Sam Houston Tollway northbound at Briar Forest Drive around 7:36 Wednesday morning, hitting drivers right in the heart of the AM commute.

This wasn't a minor fender bender. According to LTA data, 10 of the past 30 incidents at this location have been major crashes — the kind that tie up multiple lanes and keep you sitting in your car wondering what's ahead. This particular crash arrived during the corridor's single busiest hour. Between 7 and 8 AM, this stretch sees five crashes on average, though delays here pop up at varied times throughout the day.

The Sam Houston Tollway northbound at Briar Forest has become a collision hotspot. Over the past 12 months, 152 total incidents have been recorded at this location, with 94 of them classified as major. Two of those were fatal. Looking back further, state crash records from the Texas Department of Transportation show 947 crashes within about a quarter-mile of this spot since January 2020.

Contributing factors as recorded by investigating officers, per TxDOT CRIS, show "Failed To Control Speed" as the most common factor across the corridor—accounting for 375 crashes in state records. Speed management on this particular section of the tollway remains a persistent issue in the crash data.

Weather wasn't a factor this morning. Conditions were clear with temperatures at 81 degrees at the time of the incident.

Authorities responded and managed the scene. Traffic flow gradually returned as the roadway was cleared. If you were sitting in that backup, you felt it—this corridor has been running at a high incident rate all month, and Wednesday morning's crash added another disruption to a stretch that's already seeing collision after collision.