Car accident guide and crash data hub for the Washington, DC and Hagerstown region

If you were just in a crash somewhere between downtown DC and Hagerstown, you are dealing with a region that stretches across three states and the District at once. The Washington television market runs from the city east into Prince George's and Montgomery counties, northwest through Frederick to Hagerstown and Western Maryland, south into Northern Virginia, and out to West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle. Every piece keeps its own crash records, its own police departments, and its own filing deadlines. This page pulls the local numbers into one place and points you to the agencies that hold your file.

Some scale first. An estimated 39,345 people died in U.S. traffic crashes in 2024, down about 4% from the year before, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.¹ The Washington region did not follow that trend evenly, and where you crashed changes what the data looks like.

The numbers across the region

At least 50 people died on District of Columbia streets in 2024, the DC Highway Safety Office reported, and more than 70% of those deaths (36 of 50) involved high-risk behavior such as hit-and-runs, single-vehicle crashes, or running red lights.² The one clear improvement in the District was serious injuries, which the office says fell about 26% since 2021.²

Maryland counted 582 traffic deaths statewide in 2024, then dropped to 480 in 2025, the first year below 500 since 2014, according to figures released by the Governor's office and the Maryland Department of Transportation.³ Roughly a third of the 2024 toll, 173 deaths, were people walking or biking.³ Virginia recorded 918 deaths across 129,244 crashes in 2024, the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles reported.⁴

The volume sits in the suburbs, not downtown. Montgomery County, the most populous jurisdiction in the market, logged 898 reported crashes in May 2025 alone.⁵ On the Virginia side, Fairfax County recorded 12,626 crashes and 55 deaths in 2024, the highest death count of any locality in the state; Prince William County had 6,332 crashes and 30 deaths, and Loudoun County had 4,906 crashes and 13 deaths.⁴ Arlington County runs the other way, with 2,035 crashes but only 2 deaths, one of the lowest fatality rates per driver in Virginia.⁴

People on foot and on bikes take a share far larger than their numbers. Across the region, 110 pedestrians and cyclists were killed in 2024, down 4% from 2023 but still more than 30% of all traffic deaths, according to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.⁶

The roads and intersections that show up most

For years the worst-known spot in the District was the tangle where Florida Avenue, New York Avenue, and First Street NE crossed, nicknamed Dave Thomas Circle for the Wendy's stranded in the middle of it. DDOT rebuilt it. A $41 million project running from July 2023 through December 2024 restored two-way traffic on First Street NE and Florida Avenue, added protected bike lanes, and turned the leftover pavement into three new public spaces.⁷

Montgomery County tracks a high injury network, the small set of corridors that carry an outsized share of serious crashes. It is redesigning 18 of them. Construction on New Hampshire Avenue, one of the county's top-10 corridors, began in summer 2025, with further work planned on Veirs Mill Road and on Montgomery Village Avenue, the county's longest high-injury corridor.⁸ The approach shows up in the data: serious and fatal crashes on the high injury network fell 29% against the 2015 to 2019 average, while rising 16% on roads outside it.⁸

Northern Virginia's recurring trouble spot is Route 1, the Richmond Highway that runs south from Alexandria through Fairfax County, the locality with the most traffic deaths in the state.⁴ The market's main highways are the Capital Beltway (I-495) and I-270 through the Maryland suburbs, with I-70 and I-81 carrying freight out toward Hagerstown.

What the region is trying to fix

DC set a goal of zero traffic deaths by 2024 under Vision Zero.⁹ It missed by a wide margin, and its toll climbed in a year when much of the region improved.² The response has been mostly engineering and enforcement. Montgomery County has installed 54 traffic signals and pedestrian hybrid beacons since Vision Zero started, about $16 million in new crossings, plus 5.9 miles of sidewalk in the last fiscal year.⁸ In 2025 the Maryland General Assembly let the county expand automated speed cameras to known high-crash corridors, set a statewide graduated fine schedule for speeding, and raise penalties for reckless and aggressive driving.⁸

Transit is part of the fix. The Purple Line light rail is due to open in 2027, and the Capital Crescent Trail for walkers and cyclists is set to open ahead of it in spring 2026.⁸

Impaired driving and speed

Alcohol and drugs still account for a large share of the deaths, though the direction is good. The region recorded 74 alcohol- or drug-related traffic deaths in 2024, down 26% from the prior year and below the five-year average of 90, according to the Washington Regional Alcohol Program and the Council of Governments. The decline was uneven: Northern Virginia fell from 40 to 34, suburban Maryland from 40 to 28, and the District from 13 to 2, while deaths on National Park Service roads rose from 7 to 10.¹⁰ Statewide in Virginia, 318 of the 918 deaths involved alcohol and 410 involved speed.⁴

Montgomery County police stood up a Summer Traffic Task Force that issued 2,639 violations and made 134 driving-while-impaired arrests in its first season, and the county reports that fatal crashes tied to impairment, speed, and roadway departure have all risen since 2019.⁸

After a crash in this region

Your first calls shape everything that follows. Get a police report. DC crashes run through the Metropolitan Police Department, Maryland crashes through local or county police or the Maryland State Police, and Virginia crashes through county police or the Virginia State Police. The report number is what your insurer and any later claim will be built on.

Which agency holds the data depends on where the crash happened, which matters in a market split across three states and the District. DDOT publishes DC crash figures through its Vision Zero program,⁹ Montgomery County posts its own Vision Zero reports,⁸ and the Virginia DMV runs the statewide crash database.⁴ If your injuries are serious or fault is in dispute, you can find local counsel through the thatcarhitme.com legal directory.

Deadlines to file a claim differ by jurisdiction, so confirm the rule for the state where your crash happened rather than assuming you have time. Write down the scene, the other driver's details, and your injuries while they are fresh, because the region's crash records are detailed but they do not capture your side of the story.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, "NHTSA Estimates 39,345 Traffic Fatalities in 2024." https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/nhtsa-estimates-39345-traffic-fatalities-2024

2. District Department of Transportation, DC Highway Safety Office, "End of 2024 Vision Zero Data." https://www.unitedwegodc.com/post/end-of-2024-vision-zero-data

3. Office of the Governor of Maryland and the Maryland Department of Transportation, "Governor Moore Announces Maryland Traffic Fatalities Drop in 2025, Reaching Decade-Low Levels" (February 2026). https://governor.maryland.gov/news/press-releases/governor-moore-announces-maryland-traffic-fatalities-drop-2025-reaching-decade-low-levels

4. Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, Virginia Highway Safety Office, "2024 Virginia Traffic Crash Facts." https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/sites/default/files/documents/VA-traffic-crash-2024.pdf

5. thatcarhitme.com, "Montgomery County, MD Crash Report, May 2025." https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/maryland/montgomery-county/may-2025-report

6. Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, "DC region traffic crashes killed 110 pedestrians and bicyclists in 2024." https://www.mwcog.org/newsroom/2025/04/04/dc-region-traffic-crashes-killed-110-pedestrians-and-bicyclists-in-2024/

7. District Department of Transportation, "Mayor Bowser Kicks Off the Transformation of Dave Thomas Circle." https://ddot.dc.gov/release/mayor-bowser-kicks-transformation-%E2%80%98dave-thomas-circle%E2%80%99

8. Montgomery County, Maryland, "Vision Zero FY2025 Annual Report" (November 2025). https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/visionzero

9. District Department of Transportation, "The Vision Zero Initiative." https://ddot.dc.gov/page/vision-zero-initiative

10. Washington Regional Alcohol Program and Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, "How Safe Are Our Roads? (2024 Data Report, December 2025)." https://www.mwcog.org/documents/2024/12/20/how-safe-are-our-roads-report-on-the-impact-of-drunk-and-drugged-driving--drunk-driving-public-safety--/