A Montgomery County school bus carrying eight people was rear-ended Friday morning at the intersection of Woodfield Road and Greenel Road in Damascus, sending a student and two adult instructional aides to the hospital with minor injuries. The 7:05 a.m. crash involved one driver, two aides and five students, and no other students were reported injured.
Officers from the Montgomery County Department of Police 5th District and crews from Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Services responded to the scene within minutes of the call, according to The MoCo Show. The crash occurred in northernmost Montgomery County, where Woodfield Road serves as a major commuter artery through the rural Damascus area. As reported by DC News Now, police said the bus was involved in a two-vehicle collision, and the outlet reported it had reached out to Montgomery County Public Schools for more information as officers continued investigating.
WCBM News-Talk Radio confirmed the full occupancy count of eight people and specified that the injured adults were instructional aides rather than the driver, with police reporting only the two aides and one student required hospital evaluation. The bus itself was struck from behind, according to that same reporting.
A Road With a Troubled History
A Road With a Troubled History
More recently, a March 2025 head-on crash on the same road involving an eight-time DUI offender killed a 26-year-old driver, an incident that has fueled calls across the state for tougher repeat-offender driving laws, as detailed in Hoodline's earlier coverage of that fatal crash. Serious collisions have occurred along the Woodfield Road corridor.
Another School Bus Incident
Friday's crash comes just over two weeks after an MCPS school bus driver died in Gaithersburg following an apparent medical emergency behind the wheel that sent the bus into a utility pole on Route 355 near Bohrer Park during the first week of the school year, according to Hoodline's prior reporting. No children were aboard during that August crash, though it prompted extensive local road closures.
Montgomery County Public Schools operates a public school bus fleet, running more than 1,300 buses across 112,000 daily route miles to transport over 103,000 students, according to the district. That network stretches from urban Silver Spring to rural corridors like Damascus, where Friday's crash occurred.
County Traffic-Safety Efforts Continue
The Damascus crash comes as Montgomery County continues its traffic-safety efforts.
The county has ramped up spending to combat the trend, increasing its annual Pedestrian Safety Program budget by 188%, from $1.78 million in fiscal year 2018 to $5.12 million in fiscal year 2027, to fund quick-build traffic calming and school-zone crossing improvements, according to Montgomery County Government. Maryland law also addresses drivers' responsibilities around stopped school buses.
Montgomery County has an automated stop-arm camera enforcement program. It remains unclear whether the driver who struck Friday's bus will face citations, and police have not said whether speed or distraction played a role in the crash at the Greenel Road intersection.
