Automated cameras in Maryland road work zones issued more than 48,000 citations in just the first two months of the year, transportation officials said Tuesday, as part of the state’s effort to slow down aggressive speeding in vulnerable areas.

One driver on Interstate 695 had their photo snapped traveling 134 mph — more than double the legal speed limit — through an active construction zone. Another Beltway scofflaw got caught going 132 mph.

“Traveling in excess of 130 miles per hour [on I-695] is nothing short of outrageous,” said State Highway Administrator William Pines. “This cannot continue.”

State officials rolled out new data findings Tuesday as part of Work Zone Awareness Week, a national initiative to promote safer driving along stretches of roadway where people may be working mere feet from cars ripping down an active highway.

They did so from a Sparrow’s Point highway ramp about two miles from the fallen Francis Scott Key Bridge, where six construction workers died after a ship struck and felled the bridge just over a year ago.

The Key Bridge tragedy came a year after a high-speed crash on I-695 also claimed the lives of six workers, making it the deadliest work zone crash in Maryland history and sparking reforms.

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“These brave men and women are public servants who maintain our highways and keep our roads safe for all of us to use,” said state Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld. “So the next time you drive through a work zone, remember, you are traveling through their office.”

There are about 300 work zones across Maryland on any given day and more than 1,000 workers in them, said Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller, who is a former transportation engineer.

“These men and women aren’t just in harm’s way every once in a while — they’re in harm’s way every single day,” Miller said.

There were 7,110 work zone crashes between 2019 and 2023, averaging to about four per day over the period. Those crashes claimed 45 lives of Marylanders, Miller said.

“Behind every one of those numbers is an impacted family,” said Miller.

One of those ended up being the deadliest work zone crash in Maryland history, when a collision between two drivers traveling more than 100 mph on I-695 sent one of them into the highway median killing six construction workers.

Numbers have come down so far in 2025, with 251 work zone crashes to date, or a little over two per day.

The state has been leaning more heavily on automated cameras ever since road fatalities spiked during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic. So far in 2025, 112 people have been killed on Maryland’s roads, a significant dip from the same time last year.

Tiered speed camera fines in work zones went into effect this year after lawmakers passed the Road Worker Protection Act in 2024.

Citations issued by work zone cameras now increase in amount based on how fast over the speed limit a driver is caught traveling. The fines double when workers are present in the area.

In just January and February of this year, those cameras issued about 813 citations per day. That includes 23 citations for drivers receiving the maximum penalty of $1,000, which requires traveling at least 40 mph over the speed limit while workers are present in a work zone.

Critics of speed cameras often decry them as cash-grabs, but experts generally agree that though not a silver bullet, they are effective at reducing unsafe driver speeds when the consequences are significant enough.

“Let’s be clear, no one wants to issue $1,000 fines. We hope that there will be a day when no citations are issued because that would mean people are driving safely and alertly in our work zones,” Pines said.

There is a bug in the system, though — out-of-state drivers.

Much like in Washington, D.C., and other surrounding states, Maryland has little power to enforce citations issued to drivers with license plates from Virginia, Pennsylvania or other states. A recent data analysis from advocacy organization Bikemore found that the five most frequently cited cars in Baltimore City school zones had Virginia license plates.

It’s also an issue that the Maryland Transportation Authority deals with regarding out-of-state EZ Pass users on tolled Maryland roads, said Wiedefeld. His department is in active discussions with transportation officials in surrounding states to talk about reciprocity agreements, he said.

“We’re going to really focus on that, particularly from the safety side of it and the implications that has from a safety perspective,” Wiedefeld said.

And those 48,000 citations in just two months? Those came from just 10 deployment areas, said Pines. “More are operational today, and more are coming,” he said.

Said Miller: “Safety in work zones isn’t someone else’s job. It’s on every one of us.”