A 25-year-old Towson man is facing driving under the influence charges after police say his Honda Ridgeline rear-ended another vehicle on I-695 early Thursday, then barreled into a work zone and slammed into a parked Maryland State Police cruiser. The trooper inside was hospitalized, along with the suspect and the driver he first struck, in a crash that unfolded near the Harford Road interchange around 1:30 a.m.
Maryland State Police identified the suspect as Logan Persaud and say he was heading westbound on I-695 when his Honda Ridgeline struck the rear of a Chevrolet Equinox, according to WBAL NewsRadio. From there, Persaud's truck continued into an active work zone and crashed into the trooper's stationary patrol vehicle, according to CBS News, which reported that he has since been charged with driving under the influence.
The trooper was taken to a regional trauma center for treatment and released later the same day, the station's report noted. Ambulance crews also transported both Persaud and the driver of the Chevrolet Equinox to local hospitals for treatment of their injuries, and no other injuries have been reported. The crash investigation remains active, and police believe impaired driving may have been a factor.
A Governor's Plea and a Pattern of Danger
Maryland Governor Wes Moore responded to the crash by posting on social media, urging drivers to slow down and use extreme caution in construction zones to protect highway workers and emergency personnel, per the same account from CBS News. Moore also said he was praying for everyone injured in the early morning wreck.
The stretch of Beltway near Harford Road has seen tragedy before. In December 2025, off-duty Baltimore Police Officer James Beckham, 31, died from injuries sustained in a multi-vehicle crash on the inner loop of I-695 near Perring Parkway, adjacent to the same interchange, according to The Baltimore Banner. That crash involved four vehicles on the inner loop.
Tougher Penalties Since a Deadly 2023 Wreck
Thursday's crash lands squarely inside a corridor state officials have worked hard to make safer. The push for tougher work-zone speed limits and penalties traces back to a March 2023 crash on I-695 in Woodlawn that killed six highway construction workers, according to the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration. That tragedy prompted Governor Moore to create the Maryland Work Zone Safety Work Group.
Out of that effort came the Road Worker Protection Act, which took effect in January 2025. Under the law, automated work-zone speed camera fines follow a tiered schedule reaching up to $500 for driving 40 mph or more over the posted limit, with penalties doubling to as much as $1,000 when highway workers are present, per the state highway administration. Maryland's Move Over Law separately requires drivers approaching stopped emergency vehicles with warning lights to change lanes or slow down, carrying penalties of $110 and one license point that climb to $750 and three points if a crash causes serious injury or death, as Hoodline previously reported.
Persaud also faces the state's DUI statute. Under Maryland Transportation Code § 21-902, a first-offense conviction carries potential penalties of up to one year in jail, $1,000 in fines, 12 points on a driving record, and license revocation, according to the Maryland Department of Transportation Motor Vehicle Administration. The state considers a driver legally impaired at a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 or higher.
Construction Zone Was Part of a Larger Beltway Overhaul
The work zone near Harford Road sits within an ongoing $184 million Maryland State Highway Administration project spanning 38 miles of I-695 that converts existing shoulder lanes into active travel lanes during peak congestion hours, according to state transportation planning documents. The Part-Time Shoulder Use project runs from I-70 to MD 43 to relieve some of the Beltway's worst bottlenecks, a corridor Hoodline has covered before.
Statewide, Maryland recorded 1,148 work-zone crashes and nine work-zone fatalities in 2025, a 12% decline in total work-zone crashes compared to previous years amid expanded speed camera enforcement, according to Engineering News-Record. Maryland transportation officials deploy roughly 300 active work zones with about 1,000 highway workers on the road daily statewide, a scale that underscores why officials continue pressing drivers to slow down through construction stretches like the one near Harford Road.
