Maryland’s roads claimed 572 lives last year, preliminary state data shows. That number is 49 fewer than in 2023, but likely to rise as ongoing crash investigations wrap up in the coming months.

“It’s good to see we are back where we were in 2020, 2021, even though they [crash deaths] are still ridiculously high,” said Tim Kerns, director of Maryland’s Highway Safety Office, during a recent presentation to the Baltimore Regional Transportation Board.

In 2023, the state reached a 15-year high mark with 621 road fatalities, a grim climax for what officials described as worsening driver behavior since the start of the pandemic, a trend that played out in nearly every other state.

The numbers reflect deaths of those inside vehicles and their collisions with vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists.

Though the death toll came down in 2024, the percentage of those killed as pedestrians actually increased from 29% to 31%, also reflective of — but not quite at pace with — a national trend.

This comes five years after Maryland lawmakers set a goal of reaching zero deaths on the state’s roads by 2030. Fatalities have risen since then. The number of those killed in traffic has never dropped below 400 since the state began tracking it decades ago. That’s an average of more than one a day.

“I don’t really realistically expect us to be there,” said Kerns of the goal.

In an emailed statement, Maryland Motor Vehicle Administrator Chrissy Nizer said that the 572 people killed were not just data points, but “mothers, fathers, siblings, spouses, children, friends, and coworkers.”

“They were loved ones whose lives were tragically cut short, leaving behind grieving families and communities profoundly affected by their loss,” said Nizer, who oversees the Highway Safety Office.

Nizer said that she is “encouraged” that the figure has come down slightly since 2023, but much more work needs to be done to bring future numbers down even further.

But 2025 is off to a better start — so far, 16 people have been killed on Maryland roads; 25 had been killed by the same day in 2024.

Speeding is gaining ground on impaired driving as the leading primary factor in fatal crashes, Kerns said. Seatbelt use is also down, most notably with truck drivers, about 20% of whom don’t buckle up behind the wheel, Kerns said.

The grim fatality figure could be considered a wake-up call, but “one that has been ringing for years,” said Heidi Simon, director of Thriving Communities at Smart Growth America, a national nonprofit that advocates for sustainable transportation and progressive land use policies.

Pedestrians dying from being struck by vehicles increased 75% nationwide between 2010 and 2022, according to their most recent Dangerous By Design report. The figures were worst in low-income communities and communities of color, Simon said.

“We have known for some time that the way we design our roads is deadly for pedestrians and that the same old Band-Aid interventions have proven to be ineffective time and again,” she said.

Though state and local officials are beginning to look more at how road design may contribute to fatal crashes, efforts to curb unsafe behaviors are largely still business as usual — corny public service ads and traffic stops.

“Our goal is to get everyone to wake up in the morning and make the right decisions, but when they don’t, we need law enforcement to back us up,” Kerns said.

Polysubstance use — driving while intoxicated with more than one drug — has been on the rise, Kerns said, possibly a result of the legalization of recreational cannabis in 2023.

A training program for law enforcement to help identify cannabis-impaired drivers has begun throughout the state, but Kerns said that identifying the extent that cannabis is factoring into impaired driving remains “fuzzy.” There is no widely available roadside test for cannabis impairment like the breathalyzer to check for alcohol impairment.

Significantly increased speeding fines went into effect in work zones this year, the result of a devastating 2023 wreck on Interstate 695 that killed six construction workers. A new bill in Annapolis would similarly implement increasing fines based on how fast a driver was going for all automated speed cameras, including in school zones.

Before the work zone bill, all automated speeding tickets were set at $40 regardless of how far over the speed limit a driver was traveling. The updated fines start at $60 but can reach as high as $1,000 in the most egregious circumstances.

Introducing tiered fines was the result of lawmakers agreeing that “folks should be held accountable based on the danger they presented to society,” said state Sen. Jeff Waldstreicher, a Montgomery County Democrat who introduced the new bill, before the Judicial Proceedings Committee, where he is the vice chair.

“So we take the model that we, I think brought pretty close to consensus last year, and apply it to other dangerous circumstances, other dangerous roads,” Waldstreicher said.

Representatives from the Maryland Association of Counties and the Montgomery County Police Department testified Wednesday in support of the bill.