​New Year, New Look and Same Great Service to Maryland Drivers

(December 30, 2021) – The Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration (MDOT SHA) is getting a new look and launching a new partnership with GEICO to sponsor additional MDOT SHA highway incident response patrols.

“SHA is a national leader when it comes to incident response and assisting disabled motorists to keep our roadways flowing,” said MDOT SHA Administrator Tim Smith. “We will continue that same great customer experience, but with a new look for our patrol vehicles and our partnership with GEICO.”

MDOT SHA Coordinated Highway Action Response Team (CHART) highway patrols sponsored by GEICO operate in the Baltimore, National Capital, Eastern and Western regions. The CHART program responds to highway incidents, such as crashes, disabled vehicles and dangerous road debris removal and prevents roughly 900 crashes per year on average. Traffic incident management is essential in providing drivers with precious time to get to where they need to go safely rather than being caught in traffic congestion due to a crash.    

 CHART truck with new GEICO logo

For every minute that a lane is closed due to a crash, disabled vehicle, or debris in the roadway during peak morning and afternoon drives times, it takes four minutes for the traffic to recover. Clearing crashes quickly also improves safety on Maryland roads. For each minute a lane is closed during peak hours, the chance of a secondary crash increases by 2.8 percent. If a lane is blocked for 36 minutes, a secondary crash is likely.   

MDOT SHA will continue to provide data to md511.maryland.gov, but will no longer support the telephone version of 5-1-1 beginning January 1.

Motorists that encounter a problem on a state road are urged to dial #77 for assistance with crashes or disabled vehicles.

MDOT SHA maintains more than 27,000 lane miles throughout Maryland.   

For more information on MDOT SHA’s CHART program, click here.