CALIFORNIA, Md. — A total of 186,283 people lost their lives and 8,499,192 were injured in motor vehicle collisions in the United States between 2019 and 2023. Of those, 2,858 fatalities and 208,587 injuries occurred in Maryland.
“We publish those reports annually based on data from Maryland State Police,” said Dr. Tim Kerns, director of Maryland’s Highway Safety Office. “They collect it from other agencies, and through them we get the data to produce these reports.”
This article will focus on the five Southern Maryland counties covered by The BayNet: Anne Arundel, Calvert, Charles, Prince George’s and St. Mary’s.
From 2019 to 2023, about 8% of all crashes occurred in January, with the monthly rate steadily increasing to about 9% by December. However, accidents with injuries or fatalities tended to spike 3–5% between May and October and remain elevated until the end of the year. Men tended to be behind the wheel slightly more than 50% of the time accidents occurred, but that rate increased drastically to 70% or higher for fatal accidents specifically. Gender parity was more even for passenger fatalities in crashes, and these rates vary much more between the five counties that constitute Southern Maryland. In general, drivers and passengers tended to perish in crashes where they only used one piece of safety equipment, usually just a seat belt or helmet, or nothing at all.
“We measure deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled,” Kerns said. “That sort of compensates for frequency of use. In 2023 in Maryland, we had a rate of 1.08. That made us 35th in the country, and we had fewer fatalities than any of our neighboring jurisdictions except for Virginia.”
Between 2019 and 2023 in Southern Maryland, 35.13% of fatal collisions were caused by drivers who had blood alcohol content levels above the legal limit. About 55.24% of deadly crashes involved only a single vehicle, and 29.18% involved speeding. In addition, 42.97% of fatal crashes involved a “roadway departure,” or a vehicle leaving its lane. Another 26.53% happened in or around an intersection. Passengers died in 38.72% of fatal crashes, motorcyclists died in 13.79% and pedestrians died in 24.74%. Pedestrians and other non-motorists were at the greatest risk when they were on a shoulder, on the road but not at a crosswalk, or outside the right of way (i.e., not on the road or an adjacent sidewalk).
Kerns had suggestions for ways that motorists could protect themselves and others from deadly collisions:
“Don’t drive impaired. Use a designated driver or have a plan to get home, and have that before you go out,” he said. “We find that 60% of the time a passenger is unbelted, a crash is fatal. We have about a 91% belt rate, which is good but could be better. Follow the speed limit and maintain a safe following distance. Scan the road about 10 to 15 seconds ahead for pedestrians or road hazards. Take notice of other drivers and if the person in front of you is driving erratically, try to get away from them.”
“One thing we’re trying to make the public more aware of is not to use the word ‘accident’ to describe these crashes. When we say they’re accidents, people start to think that there was nothing that could be done. What we see with things like driving impaired, with speeding, with not wearing a seat belt is that these are all actions that can be predicted and prevented. And if we do that, we can reduce the number of fatalities. It’ll take a lot of coordination and collaboration, but it’s worth it. Our goal is to have a day where we have no traffic fatalities. As of July 16, there have been 241 deaths from crashes in 2025. On the positive side, that’s 20% lower than this time last year. If we work together, we can maintain that trend.”
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these stats are not bad thats less then 2 a day over those 4 year period. Most cars are filled with a family of 4 or more.
Brothers need to slow down
All are ‘Cars’ fault, just like guns.