The Surprising Epicenter of Olney Traffic Accidents

If Olney, Maryland, had a main street, it would be Maryland Route 108, known as Olney-Sandy Spring Road and Olney-Laytonsville Road. MD 108 serves as the primary east-west corridor through the northern Montgomery County community, carrying heavy commuter traffic and providing local access to shopping and business centers clustered around the intersection with Georgia Avenue.

Within the Olney town center, MD 108 intersects three signalized roads: Georgia Avenue (MD 97), Spartan Road, and Village Center Drive. Typically, major intersections such as Georgia Avenue and MD 108 record the highest numbers of crashes in suburban road networks. However, official crash records submitted by state and local police to the Maryland Automated Crash Reporting System (ACRS) reveal a surprising fact: More traffic collisions occur at a shopping center entrance than at any other intersection in Olney.

The numbers presented here include only incidents recorded by police officers responding to the scene. Many minor collisions occur without police involvement.

Montgomery Fix parsed the crash data from January 1, 2015 through September 30, 2026. During this nearly 11-year period, the intersection of MD 108 and Village Center Drive recorded 67 collisions, substantially exceeding the 44 at Georgia Avenue and MD 108 and the 21 at Spartan Road and MD 108. Village Center Drive primarily connects shopping centers on either side of MD 108, while Georgia Avenue is a major six-lane divided state highway and Spartan Road is a major county collector road. For comparison, we examined crash data from all three intersections.

At Georgia Avenue and MD 108, two major state highways intersect. Village Center Drive primarily serves customers entering and leaving Olney Village Center and the retail plazas across MD 108. Despite its much lower traffic volume, Village Center Drive experienced 52.3% more crashes overall and 125% more crashes involving personal injuries than Georgia Avenue during the period studied.

The fact that Village Center Drive has more crashes despite carrying far less traffic than Georgia Avenue suggests that traffic volume is likely not the issue. The intersection's design and traffic signal operation warrant closer examination. While crashes at Georgia Avenue are primarily rear-end collisions associated with traffic congestion and queuing, those at Village Center Drive are dominated by side-impact and other angle collisions, which are more likely to cause injuries.

At Village Center Drive and MD 108, left-turn and broadside angle collisions account for 79.1% (53 out of 67) of all recorded incidents. These include 21 head-on left-turn collisions, 18 straight-movement angle collisions, 10 other angle collisions, and four front-to-front turning collisions. Rear-end and sideswipe collisions account for only 4.5% of total crashes, while single-vehicle collisions with fixed objects account for 9.0% and incidents involving pedestrians or bicyclists account for 7.5%.

Side-impact collisions transfer force directly to the sides of vehicles, where there is generally less space to absorb an impact than at the front or rear. This can increase the risk of injury. At Village Center Drive, 53.7% of all recorded crashes involved personal injuries, compared with 36.4% at Georgia Avenue and 33.3% at Spartan Road.

To address the crash pattern at MD 108 and Village Center Drive, transportation engineers should examine changes to the intersection design that reduce conflicts involving left turns. One potential measure is changing the traffic signal from permissive or protected/permissive left-turn phasing to protected-only phasing.

Under protected-only phasing, drivers may turn left only when given a dedicated green arrow. They cannot turn across oncoming traffic while the signal displays a red arrow. This would eliminate conflicts between left-turning vehicles and opposing through-traffic during the protected phase, directly addressing a major category of crashes at the intersection. 

A Community Pushes for Change

For Olney residents, this report provides numerical evidence of a problem they have experienced firsthand. Concerns about the MD 108 and Village Center Drive intersection have been voiced for many years.

MD 108 is a state highway under the jurisdiction of the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration (MDOT SHA). Changes to traffic signal control, such as converting a permissive left turn to an exclusive protected-only phase, require engineering studies and signal evaluations by MDOT SHA. State highway agencies must weigh safety improvements against traffic flow and delays. Protected-only left-turn phasing dedicates signal time to turning vehicles, potentially increasing delays and traffic backups along MD 108 during peak commuting periods.

MDOT’s emphasis on keeping traffic moving can complicate safety improvements at Village Center Drive. Because the intersection primarily serves private commercial properties rather than connecting two public roads, projects there may receive less priority for state transportation funding than improvements at major intersections such as Georgia Avenue.

Community frustration over safety at MD 108 and Village Center Drive has fueled sustained public advocacy. The Greater Olney Civic Association (GOCA), an umbrella organization representing neighborhood and homeowners associations across the Olney Master Plan area, serves as a leading civic voice communicating with county and state officials. Through its Transportation Committee, GOCA established community reporting mechanisms, including the GOCA RoadReport, to document hazards, crosswalk maintenance needs, and traffic signal concerns. The reports are submitted directly to MDOT SHA District 3 and Montgomery County Department of Transportation engineers.

Frustration is growing in Olney. This reporter, who is also an administrator of the 4,000-member “Only in Olney” Facebook group, wrote to Montgomery County Council Member Dawn Luedtke in April 2025 on behalf of the group to ask about the intersection and possible safety improvements. On April 14, Aaron Kraut, Luedtke’s chief of staff, responded:

Since last month, our office has been in touch with the State Highway Administration’s District 3 office (which covers Montgomery County) asking their engineers to examine the causes of the recent crashes and consider both physical safety upgrades and changes to the traffic signal pattern to better prevent these crashes. We have been working on this with our State legislative team in District 14 (Sen. Craig Zucker, Dels. Anne Kaiser, Pam Queen, and Bernice Mireku-North) and hope to have updates from State Highway soon.

While Olney waits, collisions continue to occur and frustration grows. Following a fiery crash this week, GOCA posted a photo of the burning vehicles on its Facebook page, urged concerned residents to contact the Maryland Department of Transportation, and provided a link. The message included an additional plea that reflected the community's growing frustration: “GOCA has been working on addressing this dangerous intersection for some time, and we need your help to escalate the issue. Please make your voices heard.”