A 22-year-old man is dead after the car he was riding in slammed into a concrete support pillar along North Loop 1604 West in San Antonio, and police say the driver was found to be intoxicated at the time of the crash. Neither the driver nor the passenger was wearing a seat belt when the vehicle struck the pillar in the westbound lanes early Sunday morning.
San Antonio police were called to the 4600 block of North Loop 1604 West around 2:11 a.m., according to KSAT. Investigators determined the driver, also 22, was speeding before losing control of the vehicle and striking the pillar. The passenger was pronounced dead at the scene; his name has not been released. The driver was taken to a local hospital for treatment of crash injuries.
The stretch of highway where the crash happened sits inside TxDOT's $1.4 billion Loop 1604 Expansion Project, where crews have spent months installing concrete support pillars and elevated flyover structures as part of an effort to widen the corridor from four to ten main lanes, according to MySA. Those support structures, built to carry the finished expansion, now line active travel lanes used by drivers every day.
Neither Man Was Buckled In
Police noted that neither the driver nor the passenger was wearing a seat belt at the time of impact, per the same KSAT report. Under Texas Transportation Code § 545.413, all vehicle occupants are legally required to wear seat belts, with unbelted riders facing misdemeanor fines of up to $200, according to a provision cited in prior Hoodline reporting. San Antonio police say their investigation remains ongoing and that details could change as more information becomes available.
Potential Felony Charges Ahead
Because police say the driver was intoxicated at the time of the fatal collision, he faces potential prosecution under Texas Penal Code § 49.08, which defines Intoxication Manslaughter as operating a vehicle in a public place while intoxicated and causing another person's death by accident or mistake, according to FindLaw. The offense is a second-degree felony punishable by two to 20 years in state prison and fines up to $10,000, and prosecutors need only prove that impairment caused the fatal crash rather than any intent to kill.
Texas law applies that same charge regardless of whether the person killed was riding in another vehicle or voluntarily sitting in the suspect's own car, according to the LaHood Norton Goss Law Group. That distinction matters here, since the man who died was a passenger in the vehicle the suspect was driving. Texas law also bars deferred adjudication community supervision for intoxication offenses, meaning a conviction would carry a mandatory prison sentence or, if probation is somehow granted, a minimum 30 days in jail, per the same source.
A Familiar Stretch of Highway
This is not the first fatal or serious crash tied to intoxicated or reckless driving on San Antonio's loop roads in recent months. In September, a San Antonio man was sentenced to 10 years for Intoxication Manslaughter after a 116-mph drunk driving crash that killed a passenger, and a rollover crash on the same North Loop 1604 West corridor sent a 21-year-old driver to the hospital just days before that. A separate crash in July on Loop 410's access road killed an unbelted passenger who was ejected from the vehicle, with the driver eyed for DWI.
Bexar County recorded 1,621 alcohol-related crashes in 2025, resulting in 46 fatalities — roughly one in four of the county's 190 total traffic deaths that year, according to data compiled by Ryan Orsatti Law. Statewide, alcohol-involved crashes caused 1,053 deaths in 2024, per the Texas Traffic Records Coordinating Committee. University Health System's Level I trauma center in San Antonio treats roughly 250 patients annually for injuries from drunk driving collisions, an average of about 20 victims per month, as previously reported by Hoodline.
San Antonio police have not released the identity of the man who died, and the investigation into Sunday's crash continues. Police say information could change as more details become available.
