Anyone who has toured through the WTOP studio gets to see firsthand how busy it gets inside the WTOP Traffic Center. Anyone who listens can also get that sense, with the constant barrage of scanners and sirens in the background.
Almost every incident WTOP talks about, from fender benders to disabled vehicles to jack knifed tractor-trailers, are recorded. And in 2024, there was a lot to record.
In all, there were well over 17,000 incidents recorded by WTOP’s traffic reporters in 2024. And truth be told, it’s probably a substantial undercount of the true amount of mayhem and mishaps that happen on the road.
That means, the 17,506 we did record is far from being all-inclusive.
“No list of crashes ever will be. Many will never be documented,” WTOP Traffic Reporter Dave Dildine said.
Part of that is because WTOP stops documenting crashes in the overnight hours, from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. It’s also because not every incident will be reported.
“There are a lot of fender benders that never get a police response,” Dildine said. “There are also places where it’s easier to find them, and roads where it’s nearly impossible to identify them. But more than 17,000, and that only accounts for the known crashes on major roads. The true number is likely thousands and thousands higher.”
Now, think about how much of an impact that has on us as individuals and as a society.
“Each one of those represents a trip to a body shop, a trip to a hospital, or worse,” Dildine said. “Each one represents time lost, property lost, health or lives lost; and a lot of them created backups, ripples and traffic crisscrossing even long after the cause clears. That’s a lot of lost time.”
January was the month with the most number of incidents reported in 2024, with just over 1,700 of them. But only June and July saw fewer than 1,300.
The most crash prone roads that show up on the map put together by the traffic team include Interstate 395 and Interstate 695 in D.C., as well as D.C. Route 295.
The Beltway had its share of mishaps as well, with the interchange of the Beltway and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway showing up more often than other stretches.
“The Parkway-Beltway interchange kind of makes sense. Two highly traveled roads weaving at an antiquated cloverleaf interchange,” Dildine said. “There’s also a high crash frequency on I-495 in Silver Spring, but there aren’t as many on the arterial avenues that intersect the Beltway.”
When you take a step back and look at it in totality, Dildine calls it eye-opening.
“Collisions happen more often than most people realize,” he said. “When you pass one, you’re only seeing that one spot in a split second. There were more in that very spot or close by not too long ago. At this rate, there’s going to be more ahead.”
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
© 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
