A Texas Department of Criminal Justice van transporting six inmates was struck by an SUV south of Livingston on Friday afternoon, sending all six inmates and two civilians to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The crash happened shortly after 1 p.m. at the intersection of Business U.S. 59 and FM 1988 in Polk County, according to officials.
The TDCJ van was stopped at a stop sign on FM 1988 when its driver pulled away into the path of a Ford Escape traveling south on Business U.S. 59, according to a report from FOX 26 Houston. The van had been heading east on FM 1988 before the collision. Authorities have not yet identified who was at fault in the crash.
All six inmates aboard the van were taken to the hospital, officials say, along with an 84-year-old SUV driver and a 75-year-old passenger. Two guards riding in the van were not injured, and the van's driver also escaped injury, according to the same report. The Ford Escape struck the van, which had been carrying the inmates between prison facilities, according to a statement from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice cited by CBS 19, which added that all inmates were accounted for and evaluated at a local hospital as a precaution.
A Well-Traveled Corridor Near Death Row
The crash site sits just a few miles from the Allan B. Polunsky Unit, the major TDCJ facility housing the state's male death row and maximum-security prisoners, located about five miles southwest of Livingston off FM 350, per the agency's unit directory. That proximity helps explain why prison transport vehicles are a regular presence on the highways ringing Livingston, since transfers, medical trips, and intake runs routinely pass through the area.
The intersection where Friday's crash occurred has drawn scrutiny before. Planning documents released by the Texas Department of Transportation in October 2024 proposed reconfiguring the Business 59 and FM 1988 interchange, including realigning Business 59, extending FM 1988, and eliminating left turns to fix the junction's geometry. Separately, TxDOT's Lufkin District had announced resurfacing and maintenance work on Business 59 between US 59 North and FM 1988 in late August, just days before the crash.
Second TDCJ Transport Crash In Two Months
Friday's collision follows a more serious incident just two months earlier, when a TDCJ transport bus carrying 26 inmates crashed and overturned on State Highway 164 in Limestone County on July 1, hospitalizing eight people, according to the Waco Tribune-Herald. An official crash report released in late July determined that the driver of that bus had fallen asleep behind the wheel before running off the road, a finding that prompted inmate relatives to question shift scheduling and driver fatigue policies, as reported by KCEN-TV.
The scale of the state's inmate transport operation is considerable. TDCJ's Classification and Inmate Transportation Division oversees the movement of roughly 141,000 incarcerated individuals across 104 facilities statewide, handling unit transfers, medical appointments, and intake operations, according to the agency's own Connections Magazine. The presence of two guards riding alongside the van's driver reflects a policy TDCJ adopted after a 2022 inmate escape from a transport vehicle, which mandated three correctional officers on prison transport runs, per Corrections1.
What Texas Law Says About Failing To Yield
Under Texas Transportation Code Section 545.151, drivers approaching an intersection controlled by a stop sign must stop and yield the right-of-way to any vehicle close enough to pose an immediate hazard. Section 542.4045 imposes financial penalties ranging from $500 to $4,000 for failure-to-yield violations that cause a collision resulting in serious bodily injury, according to FindLaw. Texas DPS has not yet determined fault in Friday's crash.
