Bakersfield’s 10 Most Dangerous Intersections for 2026: Updated List, Data Behind It, What Has Changed, And What We Can Do
October 28, 2026 | Article by Chain | Cohn | Clark staff Social Share
The intersection with the most injury and fatal crashes in Bakersfield over the past decade is a few blocks from Chain | Cohn | Clark’s own front door.
Where 23rd Street, 24th Street and Chester Avenue meet, state crash data recorded 34 crashes between 2015 and 2025, more than at any other intersection in the city. That is the top finding in the firm’s updated list of what we call the “Bakersfield’s Most Dangerous Intersections.”
The list draws on the Transportation Injury Mapping System (TIMS), the free crash database maintained by UC Berkeley’s Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC), which compiles injury and fatal crashes reported to law enforcement. Chain | Cohn | Clark first published the list in 2022. Four years later, five of the original 10 intersections remain on it.
Chain | Cohn | Clark’s goal with this list is to raise awareness, but the firm does not plan to stop there. Over the coming weeks and months, the firm will investigate ways to improve these intersections and connect with local experts and stakeholders, city and county leaders, law enforcement, community and safety advocates, and neighbors who use these streets every day, to discuss and analyze what is driving the crashes. The firm will share what it learns with the community, in the hope that the next version of this list looks different from this one.
“These are not just dots on a map. They are the streets our neighbors take to get to work, get their kids to school and get home,” said Matt Clark, managing partner and attorney at the Law Office of Chain | Cohn | Clark. “A list gets people’s attention, but we want to do more than that. If we can understand what is driving these crashes and sit down with the people who can change them, the next list should look very different.”
The 2026 List: 10 Years of Crash Data
The ranking below covers Jan. 1, 2015 through Dec. 31, 2025, within the City of Bakersfield. TIMS recorded 6,400 intersection crashes in that period. Crashes are grouped using a 50-foot search distance around each intersection. Ties share a rank.
- 23rd Street, 24th Street and Chester Avenue: 34 crashes
- Beale Avenue and Niles Street: 33 crashes
- 34th Street and Q Street: 32 crashes
- (Niles Street and Union Avenue: 32 crashes
- Panama Lane and Union Avenue: 31 crashes
- H Street and Ming Avenue: 30 crashes
- Brundage Lane and P Street: 29 crashes
- Baker Street and Niles Street: 28 crashes
- (Beale Avenue and Monterey Street: 28 crashes
- H Street and Planz Road: 26 crashes
Some streets show up repeatedly. Niles Street appears in three of the 10 intersections (at Beale Avenue, Union Avenue and Baker Street). Union Avenue and H Street each appear twice.
What 2025 Alone Shows
In 2025, TIMS recorded 660 intersection crashes in Bakersfield, and four intersections tied for the top spot with five crashes each:
- Baker Street and Kentucky Street
- Beale Avenue and Niles Street
- Brundage Lane and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard
- Golden State Avenue and Q Street
Three intersections tied for the next position with four crashes each: 34th Street and Q Street, Ming Avenue and Wible Road, and Panama Lane and Union Avenue. Several others, including 11th Street and Union Avenue, 18th Street and Q Street, and Alta Vista Drive and Monterey Street, recorded three.
Three intersections appear on both the 10-year list and the 2025 list: Beale Avenue and Niles Street, 34th Street and Q Street, and Panama Lane and Union Avenue. Beale and Niles ranks second over the decade and tied for first in 2025. 34th and Q has now appeared in all three of the firm’s analyses: the 2022 list, the 2026 10-year list, and the 2025 single-year ranking.
“Number one on this list is a few blocks from our front door,” said Clark. “We drive through it, we walk through it, and people we represent have been hurt in it. That is why we keep tracking these numbers. This community deserves to know where the risk is concentrated.”
What Has Changed Since 2022
The 2022 list, which covered 2011 through 2021, was led by Ming Avenue and New Stine Road (40 crashes), Gosford Road and Ming Avenue (37), and Real Road and Wilson Road (35). All three were in southwest Bakersfield. The remaining 2022 entries were 34th and Q, Brundage and P, H and Ming, H and Planz, Baker and Niles, H Street and Wilson Road, and 4th Street and Union Avenue.
Five of those intersections remain on the 2026 list: 34th and Q, Brundage and P, H and Ming, H and Planz, and Baker and Niles. Five dropped off: Ming and New Stine, Gosford and Ming, Real and Wilson, H and Wilson, and 4th and Union. The five new entries are 23rd/24th/Chester, Beale and Niles, Niles and Union, Panama and Union, and Beale and Monterey.
The leaders have also moved. This year’s top three, 23rd/24th/Chester, Beale and Niles, and 34th and Q, are in downtown and the older central and east-side parts of the city rather than the southwest. Because the two lists cover different 10-year windows, the raw counts should not be compared one for one. The movement in rankings is the more reliable signal.
When and Why Crashes Happen
The timing data points to the afternoon commute. In 2025, 149 of the 660 intersection crashes, about 23%, occurred between 3:00 and 5:59 p.m. Over the full 10 years, 1,340 of 6,400 crashes (about 21%, fell in that same window. The single busiest block of the 2025 week was Monday between 3:00 and 5:59 p.m., with 26 crashes.
Saturday recorded the most intersection crashes of any day in 2025 (109), followed by Thursday (105). Late nights on weekends also stand out: 20 of the 29 crashes recorded between midnight and 3:00 a.m. happened on Saturdays or Sundays.
The primary collision factor recorded by officers offers the clearest look at cause. In 2025, 270 of the 660 crashes (40.9%) were coded as traffic signal and sign violations, a category that generally includes running red lights and stop signs. Another 151 (22.9%) were coded as automobile right-of-way violations, which generally include failing to yield, such as on left turns. Together, those two categories account for nearly 64% of 2025 intersection crashes.
The 10-year pattern is even more concentrated. Among crashes with a recorded violation category, 2,634 (41.9%) were signal and sign violations and 1,681 (26.7%) were right-of-way violations, about 69% combined. Improper turning, driving under the influence, and unsafe speed each accounted for roughly 6 to 9% of 2025 crashes.
“When roughly two out of three crashes at these intersections come down to a signal or a failure to yield, you are looking at moments of decision,” Clark said. “Stopping at the line. Waiting for the gap. Slowing down for the turn. Those are small choices with enormous consequences for the person in the other car or the crosswalk.”
Among the 639 intersection crashes that TIMS was able to map in 2025, 103 (16.1%) involved a pedestrian or bicyclist. That is the highest share in the eleven years of data reviewed and compares with a 10-year average of 12%. Across the full period, the mapped data shows 34 pedestrians and eight bicyclists killed in Bakersfield intersection crashes, including four pedestrians in 2025.
That finding aligns with the firm’s separate analysis of bicycle crashes, which found approximately 106 bicycle crashes across Bakersfield in 2025, the highest total in a decade.
“Nobody in a crosswalk or a bike lane has a steel frame around them,” Clark said. “When the share of these crashes involving people on foot and on bikes is the highest it has been in eleven years, it tells you how thin the margin is.”
The Larger Trend
Among mapped intersection crashes, the annual count rose from 476 in 2015 to 639 in 2025, an increase of about 34%, with a high of 683 in 2023. Roughly 1,085 people were injured in intersection crashes in each of 2024 and 2025.
There is encouraging news on fatalities. In 2025, nine intersection crashes were fatal, with 10 deaths, the lowest total since 2019 and well below the 20 deaths recorded in 2022. Over the full 10 years, the mapped data shows 132 fatal crashes and 140 deaths. The decline in deaths is welcome, but the volume of injury crashes remains elevated.
Among individual streets, H Street appears in more intersection crashes than any other (386 over the decade, 34 in 2025), followed by Chester Avenue (323), Ming Avenue (320), Union Avenue (300), California Avenue (299) and White Lane (287). These figures count each crash once for every street named in the report. Gosford Road, one of the corridors the 2025-2026 Kern County Grand Jury highlighted as having grown from a two-lane street into a six-lane arterial, appeared in 21 intersection crashes in 2025 alone.
The Grand Jury’s traffic calming report, released earlier this year, found that Bakersfield’s traffic engineering division has operated with roughly the same number of engineers for more than 26 years while the city’s population grew by more than 71%. It also found that the city relies heavily on citizen complaints to trigger residential traffic reviews and recommended routine, citywide reviews of traffic patterns every two years. Chain | Cohn | Clark welcomes the opportunity to share this intersection data with the City of Bakersfield, regional transportation planners, and the Bakersfield Police Department’s Traffic Division.
The firm has also noted that a national study had ranked Bakersfield’s drivers among the worst in the country. The 2026 data suggests that behavior at intersections remains central to the problem, and that the people most exposed are often those with the least protection.
What the Law Says About Intersection Crashes
California law sets clear rules at intersections. Drivers must stop for red lights (Vehicle Code section 21453), yield to oncoming traffic when turning left (section 21801), and follow right-of-way rules at intersections and stop signs (sections 21800 and 21802). When a violation causes a crash, it is central evidence of negligence. California’s comparative fault system also means an injured person can still recover compensation even if they share some responsibility for what happened.
Evidence at intersection crashes can disappear quickly. Surveillance video from nearby businesses is often overwritten within days, vehicle event data recorders can be lost when cars are repaired or salvaged, and witnesses become harder to find over time. Signal timing records, lighting conditions, sight lines and road design can also matter. When a public roadway is shown to be in a dangerous condition, a claim against a government entity may be possible, but California requires those claims to be filed within six months of the injury.
Data shows where crashes are recorded, but residents know these streets better than any database. Chain | Cohn | Clark is releasing a video series visiting Bakersfield’s most dangerous intersections in the coming days and weeks. Stay tuned to social media channels, and this article for more information.
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If you or someone you know is injured in an accident at the fault of someone else, or injured on the job no matter whose fault it is, contact the attorneys at Chain | Cohn | Clark by calling (661) 323-4000, or fill out a free consultation form, text, or chat with us at chainlaw.com.
