The most dangerous county road in Manatee County is the 15th Street East/301 Boulevard corridor, and the most dangerous signalized intersection is University Parkway at Market Street, according to the county’s June 2025 safety plan.
Left-turn and angle crashes at intersections cause more than their share of the worst injuries on these roads.
If you drive in Manatee County, you probably already have a mental list of the most dangerous intersections in Bradenton, the ones where you slow down and look twice. Manatee County has now put numbers behind that instinct.
Its city counsel has recently identified the most dangerous roads and intersections in the area. The effort is to analyze these locations to improve safety.
If you suffered injuries or lost a loved one in an accident at one of these locations, or anywhere in the area for that matter, a Florida car accident attorney can review your case for free and advise you of your options to obtain full compensation.
Here is what Manatee County’s own crash data shows about where serious crashes happen:
The Manatee County Traffic Road Safety Program and Action Plan analyzed six years of crash reports from Signal Four Analytics, the state’s crash database. It identified the corridors and intersections where people are most often killed or seriously hurt.
Across every road in Manatee County, state and local, the county’s plan counts 386 fatal crashes and 17,625 injury crashes from 2018 through 2023. That works out to roughly one fatal crash every five or six days, and thousands of people each year leaving a crash scene with an injury.
Growth explains part of the pressure. The plan found that total crashes on county roads rose 17% between 2018 and 2023, while the county’s population grew 11%. There is encouraging news as well: fatal and serious injury crashes on county roads declined over the same period, which the county credits to targeted safety work.
More traffic with fewer catastrophic outcomes is progress, but it still leaves a long way to go.
The region’s planning agency puts the human cost in starker terms. According to the Sarasota/Manatee MPO’s Destination Zero program, about 119 people die in crashes each year across Sarasota and Manatee counties combined, and about 37% of them are walking, biking, or rolling rather than riding in a vehicle.
The county’s High Injury Network ranks the stretches of county-owned road with the highest rates and numbers of crashes that killed or seriously injured someone. The table below lists the ten corridors with the most fatal and serious injury crashes from 2018 to 2023, along with crashes involving pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists, whom the county groups as vulnerable road users.
| Rank | Corridor | Segment | Fatal and serious injury crashes (2018–2023) | Vulnerable road user crashes (2018–2023) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 15th St. E / 301 Blvd. | Rome Ave. to 51st Ave. E | 77 | 55 |
| 2 | 26th St. W | Bayshore Gardens Pkwy. to Southern Pkwy. | 74 | 26 |
| 3 | 63rd Ave. W / E | 26th St. W to 28th St. E | 64 | 29 |
| 4 | 53rd Ave. W | 75th St. W to US-41/14th St. W | 54 | 26 |
| 5 | 9th St. E | 53rd Ave. E to 301 Blvd. E | 51 | 15 |
| 6 | 57th Ave. E | 34th St. W to 301 Blvd. E | 49 | 30 |
| 7 | 30th Ave. E / W | 26th St. W to 27th St. E | 48 | 22 |
| 8 | 301 Blvd. E | 15th St. E to 26th Ave. W | 40 | 14 |
| 9 | Lockwood Ridge Rd. / 45th St. E | 63rd Ave. E to 44th Ave. E | 37 | 5 |
| 10 | 44th Ave. E | Tamiami Trail to US-301 | 30 | 7 |
Source: Manatee County Traffic Road Safety Program and Action Plan, June 2025, based on Signal Four Analytics crash data for county-owned roads, January 2018 through December 2023. Rankings here are by number of fatal and serious injury crashes; the county’s own list also weighs crash rates relative to traffic volume.
A pattern runs through these corridors. Most are multi-lane roads through the South Bradenton, Bayshore Gardens, and Oneco areas, lined with driveways, shopping plazas, and bus stops.
The 15th Street East and 301 Boulevard corridor stands out not only for its 77 serious crashes but for 55 crashes involving people outside a car, a sign of how many residents walk and bike there.
On 26th Street West and 53rd Avenue West, heavy daily traffic and frequent turns into businesses create constant conflict points.
The county also scored signalized intersections using a severity-weighted measure that counts a fatal or serious crash far more heavily than a fender-bender. These are the ten highest-scoring signalized intersections on county roads:
| Rank | Intersection | Fatal and serious injury crashes (2018–2023) | Total crashes (2018–2023) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | University Pkwy. and Market St. | 6 | 124 |
| 2 | Lockwood Ridge Rd. and Whitfield Ave. | 4 | 33 |
| 3 | University Pkwy. and Lakewood Ranch Blvd. | 4 | 51 |
| 4 | White Eagle Blvd. and 44th Ave. E | 4 | 15 |
| 5 | University Pkwy. and Legacy Blvd. | 3 | 35 |
| 6 | Lockwood Ridge Rd. and Tallevast Rd. | 3 | 41 |
| 7 | 34th St. W and 60th Ave. W | 3 | 20 |
| 8 | University Pkwy. and Town Center Pkwy. | 3 | 20 |
| 9 | Florida Blvd. and 26th St. W | 3 | 14 |
| 10 | Fort Hamer Rd. and Old Tampa Rd. | 2 | 41 |
Source: Manatee County Traffic Road Safety Program and Action Plan, June 2025, signalized intersections on county-owned roads, 2018–2023, ranked by the county’s severity-weighted score.
University Parkway appears four times in the top ten, reflecting how quickly traffic has grown around Lakewood Ranch and the University Town Center area. University Parkway and Market Street recorded 124 crashes in six years, more than any other intersection on this list. Lockwood Ridge Road shows up twice, at Whitfield Avenue and Tallevast Road, in the southern part of the county near the Sarasota line.
Closer to western Bradenton, 34th Street West at 60th Avenue West and Florida Boulevard at 26th Street West both saw three crashes that killed or seriously injured someone.
Intersections account for 42% of all crashes on county roads but 47% of the crashes that kill or seriously injure someone, according to the county’s analysis. The type of crash matters as much as the location.
Left-turn crashes make up 28% of all crashes on county roads but 36% of fatal and serious injury crashes, and angle crashes, often called T-bone collisions, make up 19% of crashes but 25% of the most serious ones.
The reason is physics. In a rear-end crash, both vehicles are moving the same direction and the car’s crumple zones absorb much of the force. In a left-turn or angle crash, a vehicle is struck in the side, where there is far less structure between the impact and the people inside.
When a driver misjudges the speed of oncoming traffic on a multi-lane road with a 45 mph limit, there is little margin for error.
Other risk factors the county identified include driving after dark, which accounts for 10% of all crashes but 17% of the most serious ones, and the October-through-March season, when part-time residents and visitors add traffic to roads that are already busy.
More than 28% of Manatee County residents are 65 or older, well above the state average, and the county found that older and teen drivers are disproportionately involved in the most serious lane-departure crashes.
The county’s study covers only roads that Manatee County owns and operates. Several of the busiest routes in Bradenton are state highways maintained by the Florida Department of Transportation, so they do not appear in the rankings above even though they carry some of the heaviest traffic in the area.
State Road 64, known as Manatee Avenue, runs from Anna Maria Island through downtown Bradenton to I-75 at Exit 220. Beach traffic, commuters, and downtown turning movements share the same lanes. State Road 70, which becomes 53rd Avenue East, connects western Bradenton to I-75 at Exit 217 and Lakewood Ranch beyond it, passing some of the county’s fastest-growing neighborhoods.
US-41, which runs as 14th Street West through Bradenton, and US-301 are the two major north-south arteries, lined with commercial driveways and crossing nearly every east-west road in the city. Cortez Road, State Road 684, carries heavy traffic to and from the Cortez fishing village and Anna Maria Island, particularly during tourist season.
Several of the county’s most dangerous corridors, including 53rd Avenue West and 44th Avenue East, end where they meet these state roads, and many crashes happen right at those junctions.
No list of dangerous roads can prevent every crash, and even careful drivers are hit by others who are distracted, speeding, or impaired. If you are hurt, a few steps protect both your health and any claim you may have:
Timing matters beyond those first days. Most Florida negligence claims must be filed within two years under Florida’s statute of limitations, although some circumstances can change that deadline.
Fault also affects what you can recover: under Florida’s comparative fault law, your recovery is reduced by your share of fault, and you cannot recover if you are found more than 50% at fault.
Evidence from the intersection itself, such as traffic camera footage and signal timing records, can be critical in left-turn and angle crashes, where each driver often claims the right of way.
Among county-owned roads, the 15th Street East and 301 Boulevard corridor between Rome Avenue and 51st Avenue East had the most crashes that killed or seriously injured someone in Manatee County from 2018 to 2023, with 77, according to the county’s 2025 safety plan. State highways such as US-41 and Manatee Avenue were not part of that ranking.
Manatee County recorded 386 fatal crashes on all of its roads from 2018 through 2023, an average of roughly 64 per year, according to the county’s Traffic Road Safety Program and Action Plan. Across Sarasota and Manatee counties combined, the regional MPO reports about 119 traffic deaths per year.
Manatee County’s fatal and serious injury crashes on county roads declined between 2018 and 2023, even as total crashes rose 17% with population growth, according to the county’s 2025 safety plan. The county has set a goal of eliminating traffic deaths and serious injuries on its roads by 2045.
Manatee County crash data is compiled by the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, which publishes an annual Traffic Crash Facts report and a public crash dashboard. Local agencies, including Manatee County and the Sarasota/Manatee MPO, analyze more detailed location data from Signal Four Analytics in their safety plans.
University Parkway carries heavy commuter and shopping traffic through the Lakewood Ranch and University Town Center area, and four of its intersections rank among the ten most dangerous signalized intersections on Manatee County roads. The Market Street intersection alone recorded 124 crashes from 2018 through 2023.
Yes. On Manatee County-owned roads, 41% of pedestrian crashes from 2018 to 2023 resulted in a death or serious injury, compared with a far lower share of crashes involving only vehicles, according to the county’s safety plan.
The corridors and intersections on these lists are places our neighbors drive every day, and the people hurt on them often face months of treatment and mounting bills. If you were injured in a crash anywhere in Bradenton or Manatee County, a personal injury lawyer at Shapiro Delgado can review what happened, explain which insurance applies, and help you understand your options.
Call (941) 954-4000 for a free consultation. We are available 24/7.
Every case is different, and results depend on the specific facts of your case. This article provides general information and is not legal advice.
