Pedestrian and bicycle crash hotspots in the Washington, D.C. region

Drivers killed 110 pedestrians and cyclists across the Washington region in 2024, more than three in ten of all traffic deaths recorded that year, and the total was still only 4% below 2023.¹ That tracks a national pattern: 7,148 people were struck and killed while walking in the U.S. in 2024, down slightly from the year before but still roughly 20% above the 2016 level.² The Washington, D.C. (Hagerstown) media market runs from the District through the Maryland and Northern Virginia suburbs out to Hagerstown, and the worst roads look different in each place. A few patterns repeat anyway: wide state highways built for speeds nobody drives, and evening hours dark enough to hide a person in a driver's headlights before there's a marked place to cross.

Washington, D.C.

The District recorded 19 pedestrian deaths in fiscal year 2024, part of 41 total traffic deaths against a goal of 26 set by DC's Highway Safety Office.³ Safety spending has concentrated in Wards 5, 7, and 8, where crash and injury rates run highest.³ One intersection keeps coming up in DDOT's own reviews: Minnesota Avenue and Benning Road NE, which the agency's acting director has described as carrying "one of the District's highest crash rates and frequency."⁴ DDOT is now rebuilding the two-mile Benning Road corridor from Oklahoma Avenue NE to East Capitol Street with a $15 million federal grant, replacing the bridge over DC-295 and adding protected walking and biking routes.⁴ A parallel study covers Florida Avenue NE from New York Avenue to H Street/Benning Road, a corridor DDOT flags for "deficient pedestrian accommodation," poor bicycle conditions, and inadequate street lighting.⁵ Metropolitan Police Department records list a pedestrian killed crossing North Capitol Street at Channing Street NW,⁶ and a cyclist killed at 12th Street and Florida Avenue NE after a driver ran a red light in a stolen van.⁷

Prince George's County, Maryland

Cross into Prince George's County and Route 210, Indian Head Highway, has carried a grim nickname for years: the Highway of Death.⁸ It logged more than 300 crashes annually between 2016 and 2019, and on a road that carries roughly 80,000 vehicles a day, police have clocked over 100 vehicles daily traveling faster than 100 mph.⁸ The Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration is partway through the MD 210 Pedestrian and Bicycle Connectivity Project, adding a shared-use path and upgraded sidewalks between the Capital Beltway and Henson Creek Trail, with a broader study extending south to Old Fort Road.⁹ The danger hasn't waited for construction to finish: a pedestrian was killed in a hit-and-run at Indian Head Highway and Farmington Road in November 2024,¹⁰ and another was struck and killed on Route 1 at Montgomery Road in August 2025.¹¹ The county's own Vision Zero Prince George's program targets zero traffic deaths by 2040 and uses a "high injury network" of one-mile corridors to prioritize where safety dollars go first.¹²

Montgomery County, Maryland

In Montgomery County, Veirs Mill Road (MD 586) at Turkey Branch Parkway in Rockville killed two bicyclists in less than a year: 19-year-old Frank Towers in December 2015, then 31-year-old Oscar Mauricio Gutierrez Osorio in July 2016, struck while riding through the crosswalk.¹³¹⁴ The County Council pushed the state for structural fixes rather than the flashing beacons installed after the first death, pointing to downhill approaches from both directions that let drivers pick up speed heading into the crossing.¹³ More recently, 27-year-old Khalid Shakir Scriven was killed in the 9500 block of Georgia Avenue near Flora Lane in February 2024.¹⁵ County planners have flagged Georgia Avenue, along with Old Georgetown Road and Veirs Mill Road, as the arterials carrying most of the county's serious pedestrian and bicycle injuries.

Northern Virginia's Richmond Highway

In Fairfax County, Richmond Highway (Route 1) has drawn its own scrutiny this year. VDOT crash data analyzed in a spring 2026 report found 62 pedestrians and cyclists killed or seriously injured on the corridor between February 2017 and December 2025, 22 of them fatally.¹⁶ A single 6.6-mile stretch between Belvoir Road and South Kings Highway accounted for 58% of those crashes. Ninety-five percent happened at night, and 82% happened somewhere other than a marked crosswalk.¹⁶ The intersection at Richmond Highway and Huntington Avenue stood out for a different reason: four of its five serious crashes involved alcohol.¹⁶ VDOT itself rates Richmond Highway among the state's most dangerous roads for people on foot.¹⁶

Hagerstown and Washington County

At the market's western edge, Hagerstown has its own documented crash history. A five-year study behind the city's Bicycle and Pedestrian Priority Area Plan counted 87 pedestrian crashes and 30 bicycle crashes downtown between January 2015 and August 2019, including two pedestrian deaths.¹⁷ Seven in ten of those pedestrian crashes happened somewhere other than a crosswalk, and crashes away from a crosswalk were five times as likely to be fatal or cause a major injury as crashes at a marked one.¹⁷ Dual Highway between Cannon Avenue and Cleveland Avenue logged 88 crashes from 2015 to 2020, including 13 involving pedestrians and one fatality, which led the city to install temporary safety measures on that stretch in 2024.¹⁸ Countywide, Washington County recorded 5, 5, and 3 pedestrian deaths in 2019, 2020, and 2021, with no bicyclist fatalities in any of those three years, according to the state's most recent county-level safety review.¹⁹

A pattern more than a decade in the making

A national ranking a decade ago put the whole Washington region 35th out of 51 major metro areas for pedestrian danger, tied to 843 walking deaths over the prior ten years.²⁰ The specific roads have shifted since then, but the underlying problem hasn't: wide arterials carrying more traffic than they were built for, and long blocks where the nearest legal crossing sits a quarter mile from where people actually need to cross. Every jurisdiction above now has an active safety plan, and in most cases funded construction, aimed at its worst corridors.

If you or someone you love was hit while walking or biking anywhere in this region, the road's crash history and any safety project already funded nearby can matter to how a claim gets handled. An attorney who handles pedestrian and bicycle cases in your specific county or ward will know that history. You can find one through thatcarhitme.com's legal directory.

This article is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

1. Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, "DC region traffic crashes killed 110 pedestrians and bicyclists in 2024," April 4, 2025. https://www.mwcog.org/newsroom/2025/04/04/dc-region-traffic-crashes-killed-110-pedestrians-and-bicyclists-in-2024/

2. Governors Highway Safety Association, "Pedestrian Traffic Fatalities by State: 2024 Data." https://www.ghsa.org/resource-hub/pedestrian-traffic-fatalities-2024-data

3. District of Columbia Highway Safety Office, FY2024 Annual Report, January 31, 2025 (hosted by NHTSA). https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2026-01/DC%20FY24%20Annual%20Report-tag.pdf

4. District Department of Transportation, "DDOT Announces $15M Federal Grant to Improve Transportation Infrastructure Along Benning Road." https://ddot.dc.gov/release/ddot-announces-15m-federal-grant-improve-transportation-infrastructure-along-benning-road

5. District Department of Transportation, "Florida Avenue NE Multimodal Transportation Project." https://ddot.dc.gov/page/florida-avenue-ne-multimodal-transportation-project

6. Metropolitan Police Department, "Pedestrian Fatality: Intersection of North Capitol Street and Channing Street, Northwest." https://mpdc.dc.gov/release/pedestrian-fatality-intersection-north-capitol-street-and-channing-street-northwest

7. Metropolitan Police Department, "Traffic Fatality: Intersection of 12th Street and Florida Avenue, Northeast." https://mpdc.dc.gov/release/traffic-fatality-intersection-12th-street-and-florida-avenue-northeast

8. WTOP News, "Highway of death: Why has Indian Head Highway had so many fatal crashes?" https://wtop.com/prince-georges-county/2017/01/highway-death-indian-head-highway-many-fatal-crashes/

9. Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration, "State Highway Administration to Host Open House for MD 210 (Indian Head Highway) Pedestrian and Bicycle Project in Prince George's County." https://roads.maryland.gov/mdotsha/pages/pressreleasedetails.aspx?newsId=5465&PageId=818

10. FOX 5 DC, "Pedestrian killed in hit-and-run on Indian Head Highway." https://www.fox5dc.com/news/pedestrian-killed-hit-and-run-indian-head-highway

11. NBC4 Washington, "Pedestrian struck by car and killed on Route 1 in Prince George's County." https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/pedestrian-struck-and-killed-by-car-on-route-1-in-prince-georges-county/3980780/

12. Vision Zero Prince George's. https://visionzero-princegeorges.hub.arcgis.com/

13. Montgomery County Council, press release on Veirs Mill Road safety improvements. https://www2.montgomerycountymd.gov/mcgportalapps/Press_Detail.aspx?Item_ID=16235&Dept=1

14. The Washington Post, "Bicyclist fatally struck by car at intersection at Veirs Mill Road in Rockville," July 17, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/bicyclist-struck-and-killed-by-car-in-rockville/2016/07/17/3098827a-4c65-11e6-a422-83ab49ed5e6a_story.html

15. Montgomery County, Maryland, "Detectives Investigate Georgia Avenue Pedestrian Fatality; Victim's Identity Released." https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/news/detectives-investigate-georgia-avenue-pedestrian-fatality-victims-identity-released

16. Northern Virginia Families for Safe Streets, KSI Analysis on Richmond Highway (Route 1), Fairfax, VA, May 2026. https://novasafestreets.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Richomnd-Hwy_KSI-Analysis_NoVA-FSS_May-2026.pdf

17. Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration and City of Hagerstown, Hagerstown Bicycle and Pedestrian Priority Area Plan, May 2020. https://hepmpo.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Hagerstown-BPPA-Final.pdf

18. City of Hagerstown, "Dual Highway Demonstration Safety Project." https://www.hagerstownmd.org/1727/Dual-Highway-Demonstration-Safety-Projec

19. Maryland Highway Safety Office / Zero Deaths MD, Washington County FFY2024 Problem Identification. https://zerodeathsmd.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FY2024_Washington-County_PID_Final.pdf

20. Coalition for Smarter Growth, citing Smart Growth America's Dangerous by Design report. http://www.smartergrowth.net/news-parent/press-releases/dangerous-by-design-with-843-pedestrian-fatalities-in-10-years-still-work-to-do-for-safe-streets-in-dc-region/