Baltimore doesn't have one deadly road. It has a short list of them, and the pattern repeats every year: a handful of corridors account for most of the region's serious crashes, while everything else stays comparatively calm. Baltimore City's own transportation department has mapped this out block by block, and federal crash records confirm it at the scale of the whole metro. If you drive I-83, the Beltway, Pulaski Highway, or Reisterstown Road regularly, you're driving the roads where the numbers concentrate.
The 7 percent that cause most of the damage
Baltimore City's "Toward Zero" plan, the city's version of Vision Zero, is built around what planners call the High Injury Network, a small set of streets that produce a disproportionate share of serious and fatal crashes.1 Reporting on the city's own crash analysis found that roughly 60 percent of Baltimore's worst crashes happen on just 7 percent of its roadways, with Pennsylvania Avenue, North Avenue, North Eutaw Street, Belair Road, Orleans Street, and Pratt Street named among the worst performers.2 The city's 2023 corridor work targeted Monroe Street, Paca Street, Light Street, and Liberty Heights Avenue specifically, funded in part by a $9.92 million federal Safe Streets and Roads for All grant.1 In 2024, Baltimore City logged more than 15,000 crashes, 508 serious injuries, and 64 deaths, and the five years through 2023 showed overall crash counts falling while serious injuries and deaths climbed, a split now driving the city toward physical redesigns instead of signage alone.2
Federal crash records tell a similar story from a different angle. In 2023, NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System counted 40 fatal crashes in Baltimore City, resulting in 41 deaths.3 Pedestrians made up more than half of that toll: 22 pedestrian crashes killed 22 people, compared with 17 motorists and one cyclist. Twelve of the fatal crashes involved speeding, 11 were hit-and-run, and seven involved a driver impaired by alcohol.3
Jones Falls Expressway, the crash-a-day highway
I-83 through the city, known locally as the Jones Falls Expressway, has carried a reputation for decades as one of the region's most crash-prone stretches. City transportation officials have said the elevated highway sees between 250 and 300 crashes a year near its Hampden curves, close to one a day, a location commuters still describe by a since-removed Pepsi billboard that used to mark the spot.4 A follow-up analysis found crash rates on that stretch topping 38 incidents per mile between 2010 and 2014, more than double the state average, and pointed to the highway's tight curves and elevation changes, features never designed for interstate speeds, as the cause rather than any single sign or interchange.5 More than 100,000 vehicles a day still use the corridor to move between downtown and the northern suburbs.4
The Beltway's worst mile
I-695, the Baltimore Beltway, carries the region's heaviest commuter volume and some of its worst crashes. The deadliest recent example came on March 22, 2023, when a driver traveling well over 100 mph on the inner loop struck another car, lost control, and crashed through a gap in the barrier separating traffic from a highway work zone, killing six construction workers.6 Maryland State Police later obtained manslaughter indictments against both drivers involved.6 In April 2025, troopers responded to another fatal crash nearby on the inner loop at Greenspring Avenue, where a Jeep that had fled a traffic stop crashed and burned on the ramp to southbound I-83, killing the driver and two passengers.7
When the Key Bridge fell, the crashes followed the detour
The March 2024 collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge didn't just remove a bridge that carried roughly 34,000 vehicles a day. It pushed that traffic onto I-95's Fort McHenry Tunnel, I-895's Baltimore Harbor Tunnel, and the surviving legs of I-695, and the crash data on those routes moved with it. Comparing the weeks after the collapse to the same period in 2023, Maryland State Police logged 2,004 crash reports on the alternate routes versus 1,901 a year earlier, a 5 percent increase, with a spike as high as 34 percent year-over-year by May 2024.8 Baltimore Metropolitan Council congestion data showed corridors near the tunnels running at least 25 percent more congested, with average northbound travel times through the Harbor Tunnel roughly tripling and Fort McHenry Tunnel times roughly doubling.8 The bridge isn't expected to reopen before fall 2028, so that detour, and its crash risk, stays a fixture of the region for years yet.
Pulaski Highway's pedestrian toll
U.S. 40, known through eastern Baltimore County as Pulaski Highway, functions as a high-speed commercial corridor with the pedestrian activity of a much slower street, and the mismatch shows up in the crash reports out of Rosedale, Middle River, and White Marsh. In February 2023, a 32-year-old man was struck and killed by a car and a dump truck while crossing Pulaski Highway near Berk Avenue in Rosedale.9 It wasn't an isolated event on that stretch. Baltimore County Police have investigated fatal pedestrian strikes along the same corridor in the years before and since, most involving people crossing multiple lanes of a road built with highway-style spacing between signals and crosswalks.
Reisterstown Road's double life
Reisterstown Road runs through Pikesville as both a state highway moving roughly 36,400 vehicles a day between the Beltway and Old Court Road, and the commercial main street of a walkable community, a combination that community leaders say the road's design has never resolved.10 The tension became impossible to ignore on July 9, 2026, when an MTA bus struck multiple vehicles and crashed into a FedEx Office building at Reisterstown and Old Court roads, injuring more than 30 people.10 That single intersection had already recorded eight separate crashes earlier in 2026 before the bus crash added a ninth.10 Pikesville Improvement Corporation president Dan Brody called the road's problems "something that has been known to us as an issue, known to everyone as an issue," while a local infrastructure committee chair argued the state's design prioritizes vehicle throughput over the safety of the business district it runs through.10
The statewide trend, and where it doesn't apply
Statewide, the trend is genuinely improving. Maryland recorded 480 traffic deaths in 2025, down from 582 in 2024, an 18 percent drop that brought the state below 500 annual deaths for the first time since 2014.11 Pedestrian and bicyclist deaths fell 33 percent, from 173 to 116, and motorcyclist deaths fell 46 percent, from 90 to 48, gains the governor's office credited to the Maryland Department of Transportation's "Serious About Safety" push and its pedestrian safety action plan.11 Baltimore's own numbers haven't moved in lockstep. The city's serious-injury and fatal-crash counts rose even as overall crash volume fell between 2019 and 2023, the opposite of the statewide pattern, which is part of why the High Injury Network approach targets specific corridors instead of waiting for a broader trend to bring the numbers down on its own.2
If you're hurt on one of these roads
Crashes on Baltimore's highest-risk corridors tend to produce more severe injuries than the average fender bender, given the speeds on I-83 and I-695 and the mixed vehicle-pedestrian traffic on Pulaski Highway and Reisterstown Road. Get medical care first, then get the police report, since the report number and the responding jurisdiction (Baltimore City Police, Baltimore County Police, or Maryland State Police, depending on the road) will matter later. If you're weighing whether to bring in an attorney, the legal directory lists personal injury lawyers who handle Maryland crash claims.
This article is general information, not legal advice.
Sources
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Baltimore City Department of Transportation, "Toward Zero." https://www.baltimorecity.gov/transportation/toward-zero
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The Banner, "Baltimore City crashes: Where the worst traffic accidents occur." https://www.thebanner.com/community/transportation/baltimore-crash-accidents-car-pedestrians-roads-W6C72ZN4ZJDWXNFXSD56CP7XXU/
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thatcarhitme.com, "Baltimore, MD Crash Report (2023)" (NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System data). https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/maryland/baltimore/2023-annual-report
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Baltimore Sun, "Baltimore seeking solutions to near-daily I-83 crashes 'at the Pepsi sign.'" https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-pepsi-sign-crashes-20170123-story.html
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Baltimore Sun, "Crash rate on I-83 in Baltimore more than double that of other highways, study finds." https://baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-jfx-study-20190212-story.html
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Maryland State Police, "Maryland State Police Arrests Drivers Indicted In Deaths Of Six Workers Following Pedestrian Crash On I-695." https://news.maryland.gov/msp/2023/06/07/maryland-state-police-arrests-drivers-indicted-in-deaths-of-six-workers-following-pedestrian-crash-on-i-695/
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Maryland State Police, "Maryland State Police Investigating Triple Fatal Crash in Baltimore County." https://news.maryland.gov/msp/2025/04/06/maryland-state-police-investigating-triple-fatal-crash-in-baltimore-county/
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Capital News Service (University of Maryland), "Baltimore metropolitan area traffic remains affected by the Key Bridge collapse." https://cnsmaryland.org/2024/10/29/baltimore-metropolitan-area-traffic-remains-affected-by-the-key-bridge-collapse/
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Baltimore Sun, "Pedestrian killed in U.S. 40 crash in Rosedale, Baltimore County Police say." https://www.baltimoresun.com/2023/02/13/pedestrian-killed-in-us-40-crash-in-rosedale-baltimore-county-police-say/
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The Banner, "After Pikesville bus crash, some wonder: Is Reisterstown Road too dangerous?" https://www.thebanner.com/community/transportation/pikesville-reisterstown-road-mta-bus-crash-O7S5BLU66BCKDKZZN5IK7OFTNM/
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Office of Governor Wes Moore, "Governor Moore Announces Maryland Traffic Fatalities Drop in 2025, Reaching Decade-Low Levels." https://governor.maryland.gov/news/press-releases/governor-moore-announces-maryland-traffic-fatalities-drop-2025-reaching-decade-low-levels