New study shows Montgomery Co. roads with highest crash rates

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. - A new study sheds light on which Montgomery County roads and intersections have the highest risk for a crash.

It’s called the Predictive Safety Analysis, and the hope is it can be used to save lives.

"Traditionally, lots of governments have said, ‘where has there been a fatal crash recently? Let’s fix that location.’ But that’s very reactive, right? We wait for something bad to happen before we fix it. The Predictive Safety Analysis is intended to say ‘what can we do before tragedy strikes?,’ explained Jesse Cohn McGowan, transportation planning coordinator for the Montgomery County Planning Department.

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McGowan went on to say researchers were able to estimate the number of crashes at every single roadway segment and intersection throughout the county, producing a map of the top 200 locations as well as long lists of locations broken down by specific crash type.

"This was a pretty wonky project," she said. "But this work really impacts people’s lives.

For instance, the intersection of East-West Highway and Grubb Road on the border of Chevy Chase and Silver Spring made the cut for left-turn crashes.

"One way to resolve that is to have a fully protected signal phasing at that intersection, which means that the only time that vehicles can make a left turn is when there’s a left arrow," McGowan said, adding that the study is being viewed as a "first step" with many decisions on how to implement it still to come.

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