Northeast Houston accident and injury lawyer

Who writes the crash report in Northeast Houston?

All five of these neighborhoods are inside the City of Houston, and all of them fall in the Houston Police Department’s Northeast Division, whose station is at 8301 Ley Road. The division covers nearly 90 square miles. Fifth Ward is mostly beat 7C10, between Liberty Road and Buffalo Bayou; Kashmere Gardens is 7C20; Settegast and the Houston Gardens side of Trinity/Houston Gardens are in district 8; and Denver Harbor is 9C20, between Lockwood and the Loop.

The officer has ten days to file the report. Texas crash reports are bought through TxDOT, not picked up at the station, and we request yours. The agency name and case number on the slip the officer hands you lets us find it quickly. More in how to get a crash report in the Houston area.

Freeways that split the neighborhoods

The City of Houston describes Fifth Ward as bounded by Buffalo Bayou, Lockwood Drive, Liberty Road and Jensen Drive. I-10 East runs straight through it, and through Denver Harbor too; the city notes that the interstate “splits Denver Harbor physically.” Kashmere Gardens runs along the North Loop East of 610. Where I-10 and the Loop meet, U.S. 90 begins as the Crosby Freeway and heads northeast.

HPD notes that business along this side of town is concentrated on the I-10 corridor, and the south edge of Denver Harbor, along Clinton Drive, is industrial. That means tractor-trailers on the freeway, and on the surface streets that feed it: Lockwood, Liberty, Jensen, Kelley, Wayside. A crash with a commercial truck runs under federal safety rules, more than one company can be responsible, and the driver’s logs and the truck’s electronic data can disappear in days. We send the demand to preserve them right away; our Houston 18-wheeler page explains what happens next.

Rail yards, stopped trains and the people who go around them

Union Pacific’s Englewood Yard runs along Liberty Road near the 610 overpass, with Settegast Yard beside it. It is a hump yard, where freight cars are sorted onto new trains, and the trade press has reported it handling about 2,700 cars a day. The city’s own neighborhood profile says Settegast is “bordered on the west by a very large railroad-switching yard,” and that railroad tracks “trisect” Trinity/Houston Gardens.

Living next to that much rail has a cost. In September 2024 an elderly man using a wheelchair was killed trying to get under a stopped Union Pacific train at Lyons and St. Elmo in Fifth Ward, and city council members called for tunnels, bridges and better warnings. Earlier that year, families near McReynolds Middle School described children crawling under and climbing over stalled trains to get to school.

When a train, a crossing gate, a signal or a blocked view played a part in how someone was hurt, the railroad may share responsibility with a driver, or carry it alone. Railroads keep their own records of what happened, and we ask them early to preserve those records.

City trucks, METRO buses and the 90-day notice

If a city garbage truck, a police car or a city work crew caused the crash, the claim is against the City of Houston, and the clock is short. The city charter requires written notice within 90 days, verified and signed before a notary, sent to the City Secretary with a copy to the City Attorney. The Texas Tort Claims Act also caps what a city pays at $250,000 per person (Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 101).

METRO is a governmental unit under that same Act (Transp. Code § 451.052), so a crash with a METRO bus carries its own notice rules, generally six months. We confirm the deadline that applies to your case and send every notice ourselves.

Walking and waiting for the bus

A lot of people here get around on foot and by bus. METRO’s Kashmere Transit Center is a hub for routes such as 51 Hardy-Kelley, 52 Hardy-Ley, 80 MLK/Lockwood and 97 Settegast. In 2019, community advocates told the METRO board that stops along Lockwood and Kelley had little lighting, and that two miles of Little York between Homestead and the Eastex Freeway had no bus service at all. The city has since included Kashmere Gardens in its Resilient Sidewalk Program.

Citywide, pedestrians were about a third of the people killed in Houston crashes in 2022. A driver owes care to people walking whether or not they are in a crosswalk. If you were hit on foot, the driver’s insurance pays first, and uninsured motorist coverage on a policy in your household may help if the driver had none or drove off. See hit by a car while walking.

LBJ Hospital, on this side of town

Harris Health’s Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital is at 5656 Kelley Street, on the Loop east of Lockwood. Harris Health calls it the first Level III trauma center designated in Texas and the state’s busiest, with more than 80,000 emergency visits a year. A new hospital is going up on the same campus, built to Level I trauma standards and expected to open in early 2029. EMS decides where you go based on your injuries. Whatever hospital you end up in, keep every follow-up appointment, and tell us if you have no health insurance; there are ways to get treatment while the case is pending.

A community with deep roots

Freed people settled Fifth Ward after the Civil War, and it became one of Houston’s best-known Black neighborhoods. Settegast began, in the city’s words, as “an inexpensive location for African American Houstonians seeking housing.” Denver Harbor started as a blue-collar Anglo neighborhood and is now predominantly Hispanic. Today, City of Houston figures show Greater Fifth Ward at roughly 46% Hispanic and 44% Black, Kashmere Gardens at about 56% Black and 38% Hispanic, and Denver Harbor/Port Houston at about 89% Hispanic.

Jimmy Suerken is Mexican-American, grew up in El Paso, and handles cases in English or Spanish. You talk with him directly, by phone, text, email or video call, and in person when needed. We never ask about immigration status, and your right to compensation for an injury in Texas does not depend on it. Once you hire us, you don’t deal with the insurance companies, the railroad, the trucking company or the city. We do.