Report: Memphis ranks as most dangerous city in America for drivers

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - Memphis sits at the top of a not-so-illustrious list: Most Dangerous City in America for Drivers. 

According to the federal government, one out of every five deadly crashes in Memphis is caused by speeding.

Action News 5 talked with a young woman who issued a desperate plea to Memphis drivers to slow it down after losing her family in a crash caused by a dangerous driver.

78-year-old Lucy Moore spent nearly three decades working for the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office. One day last summer, Lucy and her 49-year-old daughter Lanie, a filmmaker back home visiting from New York, decided to load Lucy’s dog Sparkee into the car and take him to the park for a walk.

None of them ever made it.   

“I’ve lost the people I loved the most in the world and who loved me most in the world,” Kat Moore told Action News 5.   

Moore’s world shattered when her mother Lucy and older sister Lanie were killed in a hit-and-run accident in Raleigh on June 12 last year. 

“My mom and my sister were like my core family,” said Moore. “Like, other than my husband, they were it, they were everything. We talked on the phone every day. We took trips together every year.”

Moore said the white Nissan Maxima that T-boned her mother’s car at Raleigh LaGrange Road and Hoover Drive was speeding and stolen. The occupants, she said, bailed out and took off in a dark-colored Infiniti.

“When the paramedics arrived, my mother was already dead,” said Moore. Her sister died 13 days later at Regional One, unable to survive her traumatic brain injury.

Moore now belongs to a growing fraternity of grieving families who’ve lost loved ones to dangerous drivers in Memphis. 

Newly released data this week from the U.S. Department of Transportation shows Memphis has the deadliest roads in America, with the highest rate of fatal crashes caused by bad driving, more than five times the national average.  

In 2021, bad drivers caused 203 deadly crashes in Memphis, more than any other city.

Chicago, for example, had 118. New York had 107.  

The driving is so hazardous in Memphis, city leaders asked, and Tennessee Governor Bill Lee agreed, to saturate Memphis with state troopers.

The dangerous driver that killed Moore’s family is still out there. She’s desperate for a break in the case, and for drivers in Memphis to ease off the accelerator in order to save lives.

”People just really need to slow down and be aware of their surroundings,” said Moore, “and realize there’s more than just their lives at stake, that it’s not just about them behind the wheel. It’s about everyone else on the road as well.”

Moore said Memphis police told her they found blood in the stolen car that links to a possible suspect. But a year later, no one is in custody, and no one’s been charged.

Moore said she’s talking to MPD about increasing the CrimeStoppers reward for information leading to an arrest. 

Call 901-528-CASH if you know who was driving the Nissan that caused that deadly wreck last year.

Click here to sign up for our newsletter!

Click here to report a spelling or grammar error. Please include the headline.

Copyright 2023 WMC. All rights reserved.