A 17-year-old driver was killed, and two teenage passengers were critically injured Wednesday night after their SUV left the roadway and struck a tree in Randallstown. Baltimore County Police identified the driver as Angel Callejas Fuentes, who died at an area hospital from injuries sustained in the crash.
According to WMAR2 News, police received reports of the crash at 11:14 p.m. at the intersection of Liberty Road and Lyon Mills Road. The 2013 GMC Acadia was traveling eastbound on Liberty Road when it left the roadway and struck a tree, according to the outlet's reporting. Two passengers, seated in the front and rear of the vehicle, were transported to area hospitals for treatment of life-threatening injuries.
Investigators say the Acadia had been involved in an incident in Carroll County before entering Baltimore County, per the station's report, though the exact nature of that earlier incident has not been disclosed. The crash investigation remains active and ongoing, the outlet notes, and it is not yet clear whether the Carroll County incident is directly connected to the fatal crash that followed.
A Corridor With a History of Deadly Wrecks
Liberty Road, designated MD Route 26, is a 40-mile state arterial that runs from Baltimore City through Baltimore County and Carroll County to Frederick, serving as a primary east-west link for cross-county travel in central Maryland, according to Carroll County Government. That connectivity means a vehicle can move between the two counties in minutes, a detail that matters given police accounts placing the Acadia in Carroll County before the fatal crash.
The corridor has seen repeated severe crashes in recent years. In November 2023, a multi-vehicle wreck on Liberty Road near the Carroll County border killed four people, including a 17-year-old passenger, with speed and aggressive driving identified as key factors in that investigation, per CBS Baltimore. Nearly a year later, in October 2024, a three-vehicle collision on the same corridor required a medical helicopter evacuation to Shock Trauma, hospitalized four people, and shut down MD 26 for 45 minutes, according to the Sykesville Freedom District Fire Department.
Hoodline has covered several fatal or severe incidents on Liberty Road in Baltimore County over the past two years, including a car crashing into a Randallstown pawn shop and a separate fatal crash near Old Court Road in which the driver reportedly left the scene and later returned. State officials have also acknowledged the corridor's crash history: the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration launched a $1.7 million safety project along MD 26 in Baltimore County in April, reconfiguring medians, adding turn lanes, and upgrading traffic signals at major intersections in an effort to reduce collisions at high-risk intersections.
Rules for Teen Drivers and a Deadly Summer Stretch
Maryland's Graduated Licensing System bars provisional license holders under 18 from driving unsupervised between midnight and 5 a.m. unless they are traveling directly to or from work, school events, or volunteer activities, according to the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration. Wednesday's crash was reported at 11:14 p.m., before the midnight curfew window begins; it is unclear from available reporting whether Callejas Fuentes held a provisional license or what his licensure status was at the time of the crash.
Separately, Maryland law restricts provisional drivers during their first 151 days of licensure from carrying passengers under 18 who are not immediate family members, unless a licensed driver at least 21 years old is supervising, per the Maryland People's Law Library. Whether that restriction applied in this case has not been reported.
Statewide, an average of 23 drivers aged 16 to 20 die in motor vehicle crashes across Maryland each year, according to Zero Deaths Maryland, and male drivers account for roughly 83% of young drivers killed in that age range. The state also flags late spring through late summer as the “100 Deadliest Days,” a period when 35% of all young-driver injury crashes occur, according to the same source. Research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows teen drivers face fatal crash rates per mile more than four times higher than drivers 20 and older, with the presence of passengers significantly raising crash risk.
