SettlementLift resources
After a car accident in Houston
Find the right place to request your crash report, explore local law firms and get your next steps organized in Houston.
By SettlementLift. Published · Updated .
Finding the right local record
HPD separates accident/crash reports from offense reports and 911 or dispatch records. Its official page describes online, mail and in-person crash-report routes, with access requirements. Identify the record you need before choosing a request form; related dispatch materials have their own request instructions.
Houston Police: Public information requests ↗Truck Enforcement Unit restricted roadways
Houston Police’s Truck Enforcement Unit explains posted freeway left-lane restrictions for certain large commercial trucks. If a lane issue is relevant, preserve existing photographs showing the exact freeway segment, direction of travel, lane markings and signs. A general freeway name is not enough to establish which restriction applied at a particular location and time.
Houston Police: Truck Enforcement Unit restricted roadways ↗Local crash statistics
TxDOT’s city table lists 66,236 reportable traffic crashes in Houston, including 318 fatal crashes and 1,304 suspected-serious-injury crashes. These are crash counts, not numbers of injured people. The table snapshot is April 9, 2025, and this is not a commercial-truck-only dataset.
TxDOT: 2024 city crash table ↗A separate national fatal-crash measure
Our NHTSA FARS extraction for the Houston, Texas city-code area records 331 fatal crashes, 351 fatalities and 24 fatal crashes involving a large truck in 2024. It uses the first annual release dated April 1, 2026. The city-code area is not the county or metropolitan area. State and local publications may differ in definitions and release dates; do not add their counts, replace one with the other or treat a difference as an error.
NHTSA: 2024 FARS national CSV archive ↗How to read a city count
The figures describe records assigned to the exact FARS city code, rather than every crash associated with a mailing address or surrounding county. Records with unknown or other location codes may not be assigned to this city. A zero in a truck subset means no matching records in this extraction, not proof that no truck accident occurred. Counts alone do not measure comparative driving risk.
NHTSA: FARS analytical user manual ↗Keep the report and your own documents together
Save the agency and report reference, original photos you already have, insurer correspondence and receipts. For a truck crash, record identifiers visible in existing images and ask a lawyer whether other records need preservation. Do not return to an unsafe scene or assume truck involvement establishes responsibility.
Questions about attorneys and financial options
Ask whether a lawyer handles the particular accident and jurisdiction, who would work on the matter and how fees and expenses are calculated. Ask about applicable deadlines directly. If you are waiting for a case to resolve, compare billing arrangements and funding alternatives using written costs. Neither the local crash count nor a lawyer’s advertised result predicts your recovery.