Three people died in separate crashes along southeast Houston's Telephone Road within two weeks in August 2026.

Three people have died in separate crashes on or near Telephone Road in southeast Houston in less than two weeks, the latest coming Wednesday when a man using a walker was struck and killed at Moline Street.

Houston police arrested the driver in that crash, Bernandino Bautista, 55, and charged him with criminally negligent homicide. Bautista told officers he was blinded by the sun when he hit the man, police said. The victim's name had not been released as of Wednesday.

The death came eleven days after two people were killed on Telephone Road in the span of a single day. On the morning of August 8, David Storm, 71, was crossing Telephone Road in a marked crosswalk near Westover Street when a driver in a small white sedan hit him and kept going, according to Houston police. Storm, who used a wheelchair, was thrown roughly ten feet by the impact and died later at a hospital. Police have not identified a suspect and are still looking for the driver.

"He was knocked ten feet up in the air by this car, and the car kept going," said Lynda Carter, a friend of Storm's. "Something needs to happen out there because it's just crazy. Three deaths in two weeks is crazy."

Hours after Storm died, a woman in her 20s was killed in a crash at Telephone Road and Reveille Street. Police said she was driving south on Reveille at a high rate of speed, ran through two red lights and struck another vehicle. The driver of the other car suffered injuries that police said were not believed to be life-threatening.

Texas Department of Transportation crash data shows at least 32 crashes have been reported on Telephone Road between Polk Street and Almeda-Genoa Road since the start of the year. The stretch carries heavy daily traffic through a mix of homes, small businesses and bus stops, and pedestrians, cyclists and people using wheelchairs and walkers regularly share the corridor with vehicle traffic. Along parts of the road, sidewalks sit about a foot and a half from moving traffic, leaving little buffer between pedestrians and passing cars.

Lashanda Simmons, who lives near the corridor and spoke about the area after Storm's death, said she has witnessed multiple close calls and near-misses on the same stretch of road and asked drivers to slow down and watch for people on foot. She said the recent deaths match conditions she and her neighbors have complained about for years.

Carter said she wants the city to install speed bumps on Telephone Road, arguing that lower speeds would give drivers more time to react to pedestrians, wheelchair users and people crossing with walkers.

TxDOT told KPRC 2 that Telephone Road is not a state-maintained roadway, so the agency has no oversight or jurisdiction over the street's design, signage or speed limits. TxDOT said it does compile crash statistics reported by law enforcement agencies statewide, including the incidents on Telephone Road, but referred further questions about potential safety changes to the roadway's local authority.

Because Telephone Road falls outside TxDOT's control, decisions on infrastructure changes such as speed bumps, crosswalk upgrades or additional lighting would fall to the City of Houston. Houston police have not said whether the recent crashes will prompt a broader traffic safety review of the corridor.

The investigation into Wednesday's crash at Moline Street is ongoing, and Bautista remains in custody on the criminally negligent homicide charge. Police are still asking anyone with information about the small white sedan involved in Storm's death on August 8 to come forward. No arrests have been announced in that case as of this week.