Safety Report Highlights Dangerous Alexandria Intersections After 318 Near-Miss Incidents
A new report from Northern Virginia Families for Safe Streets (NoVA FSS) shines a spotlight on the hidden dangers of Alexandria’s busiest roads. Between January 2024 and July 2025, residents documented 318 near-miss incidents involving pedestrians and cyclists at city intersections. These are moments when a serious crash was narrowly avoided — a car racing through a crosswalk, a driver failing to yield, or a distracted commuter ignoring flashing signals.
The findings echo a larger trend: America’s intersections are where most traffic conflicts happen, and without better infrastructure and driver awareness, those “near misses” can quickly turn into tragedies.
Who Is at Risk
One of the most alarming statistics from the report is how often children are involved. Nearly half (47%) of all near-misses in Alexandria happened to kids walking to and from school. The vast majority of cases — more than 85% — involved pedestrians, with cyclists accounting for the remainder.
This paints a clear picture: our most vulnerable road users are bearing the brunt of unsafe intersection design and poor driver behavior.
When the Danger Spikes
The data shows clear patterns in timing. Incidents happen most often:
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Morning (6–9 a.m.) as students and workers head out.
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Afternoon (3–6 p.m.) when schools let out and rush hour begins.
These “bookend” windows around the workday are when children are on foot and traffic volume is highest.
Where the Hotspots Are
NoVA FSS identified six particularly dangerous intersections in Alexandria. Each one demonstrates how small design flaws or weak enforcement can create daily risks:
| Intersection | Common Issues |
|---|---|
| Hickory St. & Kennedy St. | Roundabout where drivers speed and fail to yield, confusing for pedestrians. |
| Duke St. & South Fayette St. | Flashing beacons ignored by drivers, pedestrians forced to wait dangerously in medians. |
| Radford St. & W. Braddock Rd. | Painted crosswalk only — no signal, no stop sign, no rapid flashing beacon. |
| East Braddock Rd. near Metro | Drivers blow past crosswalks despite flashing lights. |
| Mt. Vernon Ave. & Herbert St. | Visibility problems from trees, drivers ignore warning lights. |
| King St. & S. Henry St. | Left-turning cars cut off pedestrians with the right-of-way. |
These locations aren’t unique — nearly every city has intersections just like them. Which is why connecting local findings to national resources is so important.
Why Near Misses Matter
A “near miss” isn’t just bad luck. It’s a warning sign.
Safety experts stress that each narrowly avoided collision is part of a larger pattern. If ignored, those patterns lead to real injuries and fatalities. For Alexandria, the report connects near-miss data to grim outcomes: two pedestrian and cyclist deaths already this year.
That’s why documenting incidents, analyzing patterns, and fixing infrastructure is so critical.
Root Causes: Infrastructure and Behavior
The data points to two broad problem areas:
1. Infrastructure
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Lack of signals or stop signs: Almost 30% of near misses happened where there was no traffic light or stop control.
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Visibility issues: Overgrown trees, poor lighting, or blocked sight lines contributed to 27% of reports.
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Insufficient crossing time: In more than 11% of incidents, pedestrians simply didn’t have enough time to cross.
2. Driver Behavior
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Failure to yield was the number one problem, reported in 66% of cases.
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Speeding factored into 35% of incidents.
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Distracted driving, such as looking at phones, showed up in another 35%.
The overlap of weak infrastructure and careless driving creates the perfect storm.
Recommendations from Advocates
The report doesn’t just diagnose problems — it offers solutions:
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Lower speed limits on major corridors like King Street.
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Add more signals and flashing beacons at uncontrolled crossings.
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Improve visibility by trimming trees, enhancing lighting, and relocating obstructions.
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Increase enforcement, including expanding speed camera use in school zones.
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Redesign streets using “complete streets” principles, where walking and biking are prioritized alongside cars.
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Promote near-miss reporting tools so more residents document incidents and help identify trouble spots.
How This Connects to BadIntersections.com
While Alexandria’s safety report zooms in on six specific intersections, the same types of problems occur nationwide. That’s where BadIntersections.com comes in.
BadIntersections is a crowdsourced national database where drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists can log dangerous intersections in their own cities. By combining hyper-local near-miss data (like the Alexandria study) with nationwide reporting, city planners, researchers, and everyday road users get a clearer picture of where intervention is most urgent.
For example:
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If residents in Alexandria report Hickory Street & Kennedy Street to both the local near-miss tool and BadIntersections.com, that intersection becomes visible to not only city officials but also researchers tracking national trends.
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Comparing local near-misses with the wider crowdsourced dataset can reveal whether issues are unique to Alexandria or common across other U.S. cities.
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Planners can identify systemic flaws (e.g., roundabouts that confuse drivers, flashing beacons ignored by motorists) rather than treating each incident as isolated.
Together, Alexandria’s official near-miss data and the national BadIntersections.com platform form a powerful feedback loop: local reports feed into national awareness, and national trends help justify local changes.
The Bigger Picture
This isn’t just an Alexandria issue. Across the United States, the majority of urban pedestrian and cyclist crashes happen at or near intersections. Crowdsourced data tools — whether run by city governments or independent platforms — are becoming critical in filling the gap between reported crashes and unreported near misses.
Why? Because most near misses are never filed with police or included in crash databases. That means official numbers only capture a fraction of the danger on our streets. Tools like the Alexandria reporting system and BadIntersections.com capture the “invisible data” that would otherwise go missing.
What Comes Next
Alexandria has already taken a first step by funding its near-miss reporting system through a grant. Now, the question is whether city leaders will use the data to redesign streets and expand enforcement.
The larger challenge is cultural: drivers must slow down, yield more consistently, and treat pedestrians and cyclists with respect. Meanwhile, cities need to invest in infrastructure that makes safe choices the easiest choices.
As NoVA FSS has shown, 318 near misses in 18 months is not just a number — it’s a call to action.
Conclusion
The safety report on Alexandria’s intersections highlights a troubling reality: too many residents are dodging cars daily, and too many children are at risk. But it also provides a roadmap for change.
By addressing infrastructure flaws, curbing reckless driving, and encouraging more reporting, cities can dramatically reduce risks. And when this local effort is combined with national crowdsourced data from BadIntersections.com, communities get the best of both worlds: local precision and national perspective.
If Alexandria acts decisively, its model could inspire other cities to merge official near-miss studies with open crowdsourced tools, building a safer future for pedestrians and cyclists across the country.
