Which downtown Columbia bridge has the most car crashes? Here's the data.
Each day, three downtown bridges funnel more than 83,000 drivers between downtown Columbia and Lexington County — college students heading home to student apartment complexes across the Congaree River, state government workers coming into town from Cayce and truckers in 18-wheelers hauling supplies.
In the last two years, the three bridges — the Blossom Street bridge, the Gervais Street bridge and the Jarvis Klapman bridge — have been the sites of just shy of three dozen car accidents. Crashes on the bridges are relatively rare, but one bridge had more than the others.
The Blossom Street bridge had 16 car collisions despite having the fewest number of cars driving over it per day. The bridge with the lowest number of crashes — Jarvis Klapman/U.S. 1 — had only six, despite having the highest number of cars traversing it each day. On average, in 2024, Jarvis Klapman had 5,300 more cars each day, or nearly 20% more traffic, than Blossom Street.
Gervais Street fell right in the middle on both fronts — with a little over 1,000 extra cars each day compared to Blossom Street and 12 collisions between January 2024 and December 2025.
There’s no real rhyme or reason to why there are more crashes on one bridge compared to another, according to the S.C. Department of Public Safety, which maintains collision data.
“While we do not perform tests of statistical significance, the difference in the number of crashes between Blossom and Gervais is negligible and should be interpreted as one bridge being more dangerous than another,” Kyle McGahee, a spokesperson for the department, told The State in an email.
The public safety department tracks car accidents and collects data such as day and time of the crash, coordinate points, weather conditions, primary causes and number of injuries or deaths. Over the last two years, no deaths have occurred from collisions on any of the three bridges, according to data from the department. In 2014, a man and woman were killed when their car went over the Blossom Street bridge’s railing and into the river.
Of the 16 crashes along the Blossom Street bridge, which connects Cayce to downtown Columbia across the Congaree River, at least two were listed as being primarily caused by distracted driving and three were listed as being primarily caused by a driver speeding. One incident was caused by a medical event, while another listed “driving under the influence” as a cause.
As for the handful along the Jarvis Klapman bridge, three crashes were attributed to drivers improperly changing lanes, two were attributed to following another car too close and one was attributed to driving too fast while under the influence. On the Gervais Street bridge, with particularly narrow lanes, nearly half of the collisions listed improper lane usage as the primary factor in the crash.
The public safety department was only able to provide crash data between two intersections, so The State used a mapping platform to plot the coordinate points along the bridges. That map is below.
This story was originally published January 22, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
