For Maryland drivers, trooper stops drop while impaired-driving arrests rise

Maryland state troopers pulled over far fewer cars this summer than they did a year ago. Their arrests of impaired drivers went the other way.

From July through September, the Maryland State Police made 91,641 traffic stops, according to the agency's enforcement dashboard. That was down from 99,185 in the same months of 2025, a drop of 7.6%, or 7,544 fewer stops.

Over the same months, troopers made 1,448 DUI arrests, up from 1,416 a year earlier. That is 32 more arrests, an increase of 2.3%. The gain is small, but it ran against the steep fall in stops.

For District residents who commute into Montgomery or Prince George's, or cross Maryland on the way north, the result is a state police force that stopped fewer cars this summer while booking slightly more motorists for impairment.

The spring looked the same

This summer was not a one-season swing. From April through June, troopers' traffic stops fell 6.6% compared with the same months of 2025.

DUI arrests in that spring quarter rose 1.4% over the year before. Back-to-back quarters, then, show the same split: fewer stops, a modest uptick in arrests.

The dashboard does not say what is behind either trend, and the counts alone cannot show whether fewer cars were on the road, troopers were assigned differently or motorists changed their habits.

Still short of 2019

The longer view puts this year's decline in context. From July through September 2023, troopers made 80,525 stops. The count climbed to 99,185 in the same months of 2025 before falling back this year, which leaves this summer's total still above where it stood in 2023.

Against the summer before the pandemic, though, the gap is wide. Troopers made 139,994 traffic stops from July through September 2019, far more than the 91,641 they made this year.

DUI arrests follow a similar long-run pattern. This summer's rise leaves them at 1,448, still below the 1,867 arrests troopers made in the same months of 2019.

The dashboard covers only the state police. Stops and arrests by county officers in Montgomery and Prince George's, and by any police across the river in Virginia, are not in these counts, so a motorist's odds on a given road depend on more than the troopers alone.

About the data

We used quarterly totals of traffic stops and DUI arrests from the Maryland State Police enforcement dashboard, updated Oct. 8. We compared July through September 2026 with the same quarter of 2025, checked the pattern against April through June, and set the latest figures against the same quarter in 2019 and 2023.

• The figures cover only Maryland State Police troopers, not county or city police in Maryland or any agency in the District or Virginia.
• Dashboard counts can be revised as records are updated, so the most recent quarter may change slightly.
• The counts show how many stops and arrests troopers made, not how much traffic was on the road or why enforcement changed.

DUI arrest: an arrest the Maryland State Police record for operating a vehicle while impaired by alcohol or drugs.

Sources

• The publisher's Socrata open-data portal (named with each dataset): Maryland State Police Performance Dashboard - Quarterly Data, latest period 2026-10-08, released Oct. 8, 2026; retrieved Oct. 24, 2026. Data