TxDOT Urges Texoma Drivers to Slow Down in Highway Work Zones

The Texas Department of Transportation is asking drivers across the Texoma area, including those passing through work zones in Cooke and Grayson counties, to slow down and stay alert around road crews. The agency reports that work-zone crashes across Texas killed 203 people in 2025, seven of them roadside workers.

TxDOT's advice for construction stretches is direct. Drivers should cut their speed, stay focused on the road, set phones and other distractions aside, watch for workers and equipment, and leave extra time for delays. The agency directs that message at Texoma work zones the same way it does at construction sites elsewhere in the state.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration crash records count 910 fatal work-zone crashes in Texas from 2020 through 2024, the highest total of any state. That figure averages 182 fatal crashes a year and accounts for about 22.3% of the national total, according to the agency's records.

Measured against the number of people licensed to drive in the state, the average works out to roughly 9.31 fatal work-zone crashes for every million licensed drivers, based on the 19,543,658 licensed Texas drivers the Federal Highway Administration counted in 2024.

Closer to Gainesville, the federal crash records log six fatal work-zone crashes in Cooke County and four in Grayson County over the same five years, a combined 10 for the two counties. In 2024, the Cooke County crashes happened on Interstate 35, while the Grayson County crashes occurred on U.S. 75 and U.S. 82.

A TxDOT feasibility study of U.S. 82 examines the 18-mile corridor running from the Cooke County line to FM 1417 in Grayson County. Along that stretch, the agency counted 445 crashes from 2014 through 2018, about 22% of them rated severe, a proportion TxDOT says runs higher than the statewide average for comparable rural roads. The study weighs possible safety improvements for the route.

On U.S. 75, TxDOT said in April 2026 that it had accelerated construction in Grayson County. The agency said the faster timeline was meant to address safety concerns and congestion near hospitals and major highway connections.

Congestion on U.S. 75 has been a concern for well over a decade. At a 2011 public meeting, TxDOT presented a proposed Grayson County Tollway of about 33 miles, describing it as a way to relieve traffic on the route through Sherman and Denison.