Montgomery’s crash records show the most pedestrian and cyclist deaths in years, concentrated on state highways

By Staff Reporter

ROCKVILLE, Md. — Police reports filed in Montgomery County this year show 18 pedestrians and cyclists killed in the first nine months of 2026, the most for that period since at least 2019, according to an Inquisitor analysis of the county’s own crash records. Since 2022, more than half of such deaths have been on state highways, and six in ten happened after dark.

The analysis comes as all 11 members of the County Council back a bill meant to make sidewalks easier to build. Councilmember Evan Glass, who chairs the Transportation and Environment Committee, introduced Bill 51-26 on Tuesday with his 10 colleagues as cosponsors. His office said 335 pedestrians were struck in the first nine months of the year, with 41 serious injuries and 17 fatal crashes, and that by Sept. 30 the county had already passed its total of pedestrian deaths for all of 2025.

The Inquisitor downloaded every record in the county’s Crash Reporting – Non-Motorists Data set on dataMontgomery from Jan. 1, 2019, through the latest crash in the file, on Oct. 14, 2026, a total of 4,920 records of people outside a motor vehicle who were involved in a crash. The figures below count those people by the most severe injury recorded in the preliminary police report.

The trend: more people struck, more people killed

For the January-to-September period, the number of non-motorists in the reports fell during the pandemic, climbed back in 2022 and reached 534 this year, the highest in the eight years of data. Deaths and serious injuries rose as well.

Pedestrians made up 341 of this year’s 534. The file shows 17 pedestrians and one bicyclist with fatal injuries through Sept. 30, close to the figures Glass’s office cited. Small differences are expected because police update reports as investigations proceed and because the public file is refreshed weekly.

Compared with the same period of 2025, the number of pedestrians in the reports rose 7%, and the number of non-motorists killed or seriously injured rose from 68 to 78.

Where: a few state highways

The Inquisitor grouped the records by road for the period since Jan. 1, 2022, combining northbound and southbound listings for divided roads. About 870 records, many in parking lots, driveways and other off-road locations, list no road name.

Eight roads stand out. Together they account for 454 of the 3,255 non-motorists in the reports since 2022, but 103 of the 457 killed or seriously injured and 33 of the 85 killed. Seven of the eight are state or U.S. routes. Randolph Road is the only county road among them.

Veirs Mill Road is the starkest case: eight of the 38 people struck there since 2022 died, roughly one in five. Georgia Avenue had the most people struck of any road in the county.

The pattern holds countywide. State and U.S. routes, which are run by the Maryland State Highway Administration rather than the county, account for 28% of the non-motorists in the reports since 2022 but 39% of those killed or seriously injured and 45 of the 85 deaths.

(The total differs slightly from 3,255 because nine people appear in more than one record.)

That matters for the council’s options. County bills like Glass’s govern sidewalks and paths that the county builds, while changes to the lanes, signals and crossings of a state highway generally need the state’s agreement. The county’s Vision Zero program, which aims to end serious and fatal crashes on county roads by the end of 2030, works with the state on several of these corridors.

Wade Holland, the county’s Vision Zero coordinator, said it is correct that most pedestrian and cyclist deaths occur on roads maintained by the Maryland Department of Transportation. A county breakdown he provided for calendar years 2018 through Oct. 21, 2026, shows that “72% of pedestrian and 57% of cyclist fatal roadway crashes occurred on State owned roads and intersections,” he said. The Inquisitor has not independently reviewed that breakdown.

Holland said the county’s fatal counts differ from those on its open-data portal, dataMontgomery, because they follow the federal definition of a fatal crash. Data reported to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration “exclude crashes outside a roadway or death outside 30 days of the crash,” he said. A recent death in a gas station parking lot, for example, was investigated by county police, “but since it is not on a roadway open to public travel it is excluded from the federal crash census.”

The State Highway Administration said it has several safety projects planned on state roads in the county: a safety and accessibility project on Georgia Avenue (MD 97) in Montgomery Hills between MD 390 and MD 192; the state’s first Pedestrian Safety Action Plan project, on New Hampshire Avenue (MD 650) between MD 193 and Powder Mill Road, where SHA held a ribbon-cutting for the Prince George’s County side on Oct. 21 and the Montgomery side is scheduled to be finished in early 2027, weather permitting; and a safety and resurfacing project on Frederick Road (MD 355) between Brookes Avenue and Montgomery Village Avenue, with restriped lanes and crosswalks and ADA upgrades. SHA said there are no current projects on Veirs Mill Road (MD 586).

The agency also listed speed-limit reductions to 25 mph from 30 on stretches of MD 355, US 29, MD 384, MD 410 and MD 28, and to 30 mph from 35 on MD 431, saying the cuts align with its Context Driven guide, according to Shanteé Felix, an SHA media relations manager.

Hannah Wilcove, a spokesperson for Glass, said the county’s Vision Zero Monthly Crash Report is the source of the office’s pedestrian figures. While the State Highway Administration owns and maintains state highways, “there is a lot of collaboration between SHA and the County,” she said, pointing to Bill 17-26, which the council passed unanimously Tuesday to align county law with state legislation authorizing speed cameras in school zones and High Injury Network corridors.

When: after dark

Light conditions are recorded in most reports. Since 2022, about 27% of non-motorists in the reports were struck in the dark, yet those crashes account for 52 of the 85 deaths, or 61%.

For pedestrians alone the gap is similar. Of the 2,225 pedestrians in the reports since 2022, 702 were struck in the dark, but those cases make up 167 of the 357 pedestrians killed or seriously injured.

This year’s fatal crashes largely fit the pattern. Of the 18 non-motorists recorded as killed through Sept. 30, 11 were struck in the dark and two at dawn or dusk, and seven of the crashes were on state or U.S. routes, according to the records.

Where on the road

Police record where a pedestrian was when struck. For the 357 pedestrians killed or seriously injured since 2022, the most common entries were a marked crosswalk at an intersection (86 when two similar categories are combined), a travel lane away from any intersection (61), and the roadway but not at a crosswalk (42). Another 40 were coded “on roadway at crosswalk.”

In other words, a large share of the worst pedestrian crashes happened to people in crosswalks, where they had the right of way or were expected to cross. That cuts against the argument that the problem is only people crossing mid-block, though the data cannot say who was at fault in a given crash.

A newer trend: e-scooters and e-bikes

The county’s records list electric scooters and electric bicycles as separate categories starting in 2024. In the first nine months of 2026, 63 people on e-scooters and 43 on e-bikes were involved in reported crashes, up from 30 and 33 in the same period of 2025. Conventional bicycle counts have been roughly flat, at about 100 to 115 a year.

What the county is doing

On Tuesday the council also enacted legislation widening its speed camera authority to high-risk corridors, as the Inquisitor reported.

Glass’s bill would remove the public hearing requirement for some sidewalk and path projects: those that need no private property, those that would not materially impair access to private property, or those backed by a petition from at least 25% of property owners along the route, down from the majority now required. “Building sidewalks is one of the most effective ways to keep pedestrians safe and make progress on our Vision Zero goals,” Glass said in his office’s announcement. A public hearing is tentatively set for Nov. 10 at 1:30 p.m.

The county’s Vision Zero work plan for fiscal 2027 lists 45 action items, including safety corridor, sidewalk, bikeway, signal and enforcement projects.

Independent tallies point the same way. Montgomery Fix, a local news site, counted 40 traffic deaths of all kinds in the county through Sept. 30, more than the 39 the police department reported for all of 2025.

About the data

The dataset covers crashes on county and local roads reported by the Montgomery County, Gaithersburg, Rockville and Takoma Park police departments and the Maryland-National Capital Park Police through the Maryland State Police’s Automated Crash Reporting System. It does not include every crash handled by state police, such as many on the interstates. The county warns that the reports are preliminary and that classifications can change after investigation. Injury severity reflects the police report, not hospital or medical examiner records, so final official fatality counts may differ. The Inquisitor counted people, not crashes; one crash can involve more than one person. The analysis code and download date (Oct. 22, 2026) are available on request.

The Inquisitor asked Glass’s office, the county’s Vision Zero program, the county executive’s office, the State Highway Administration and the Washington Area Bicyclist Association about the findings, including what is planned for Veirs Mill Road and Georgia Avenue. Glass’s office, the Vision Zero program and the State Highway Administration responded, and their answers are included above. This story will be updated with any other responses.

Photo: New Hampshire Avenue at Randolph Road in Colesville. Famartin / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.