What caused the Pikesville bus crash? Baltimore County police say answers may not come soon

By Maggie Trovato and Natalie Jones | Baltimore Sun (TNS)

The cause of the crash that sent a Maryland Transit Administration bus into a commercial building along Reisterstown Road remains unknown a day later, and Baltimore County Police say investigators are still in the earliest stages of determining what happened.

The preliminary cause of the crash “will not be determined for some time as detectives are still in the early stages of their investigation,” Baltimore County Police Det. Trae Corbin said in an email Thursday.

The crash in the 1500 block of Reisterstown Road injured at least 33 people, including one person who remained in critical condition Thursday.

The collision unfolded Wednesday evening when the bus left the roadway and crashed into a building occupied by a FedEx store in the busy Pikesville commercial corridor.

More than 100 first responders descended on the scene, which stretched from Old Court Road to McHenry Avenue along Reisterstown Road. Baltimore County Fire Chief Joseph Dixon said during a media briefing that it was “like a war scene.”

Most injuries were minor

Dixon said that while most injuries were minor, one person needed to be extricated and airlifted by Maryland State Police. A public information officer with the Baltimore County Fire Department said 15 ambulances were used Wednesday evening.

The building that the bus struck is occupied by a FedEx store, which officials said was unsafe to occupy. As of Thursday morning, workers were boarding up windows and still cleaning debris at the location.

The crash also knocked down a utility pole, prompting BGE crews to work through Wednesday night to make repairs.

A BGE spokesperson said Thursday there were no customer outages related to the incident and repair work was finished by the early morning hours.

As investigators worked Thursday to piece together the events leading up to the crash, state transit officials declined to provide details about either the bus or the driver.

Paul Shepard, a spokesperson for the Maryland Transit Administration, declined to answer The Baltimore Sun’s questions, saying everything had to go through Baltimore County Police.

Past collisions on Reisterstown Road

Over the past few months, a roughly four-mile stretch along Reisterstown Road extending from northwest Baltimore to Interstate 695 has been the site of numerous crashes.

In April, for instance, a car backed into the front of a beauty supply store in northwest Baltimore, just southeast of the city-county line.

Last December, a 22-year-old man driving south on Reisterstown Road was killed when his vehicle struck an SUV that was making a left turn from the Interstate 695 westbound exit ramp. At the end of that month, a Baltimore County Fire Department vehicle was involved in a rollover crash at the intersection of Reisterstown Road and Naylors Lane, which sent two people to the hospital.

Have a news tip? Contact Maggie Trovato at [email protected], 443-890-0601 or on X @MaggieTrovato. Contact Natalie Jones at [email protected].

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