Hagerstown, Maryland in the context of "Washington County, Maryland"

Road traffic safety refers to the methods and measures, such as traffic calming, to prevent road users from being killed or seriously injured. Typical road users include pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, passengers of vehicles, and passengers of on-road public transport, mainly buses and trams.

Best practices in modern road safety strategy:

The Hagerstown–Martinsburg metropolitan area, officially designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as Hagerstown–Martinsburg, Maryland–West Virginia Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), constitutes the primary cities of Hagerstown, Maryland; Martinsburg, West Virginia; and surrounding areas in three counties: Washington County, Maryland; Berkeley County, West Virginia; and Morgan County, West Virginia. The metro area lies mainly within the rich, fertile Cumberland and Shenandoah Valleys and is approximately a 60–90 minute drive from Washington, D.C.; Baltimore, Maryland; and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Hagerstown is approximately 75 miles (121 km) driving distance from all three cities. The population of the metropolitan area as of 2008 is 263,753.

Macadam is a type of road construction pioneered by Scottish engineer John Loudon McAdam c. 1820, in which crushed stone is placed in shallow, convex layers and compacted thoroughly. A binding layer of stone dust (crushed stone from the original material) may form; it may also, after rolling, be covered with a cement or bituminous binder to keep dust and stones together. The method simplified what had been considered state-of-the-art at that point.

Western Maryland, also known as the Maryland panhandle or Mountain Maryland, is the portion of the U.S. state of Maryland that typically consists of Washington, Allegany, and Garrett counties. The region is bounded by the Mason-Dixon line (Pennsylvania) to the north, the Potomac River and West Virginia to the south, and Preston County, West Virginia to the west. At one point, at the town of Hancock, the northern and southern boundaries are separated by just 1.8 miles (2.9 km), the narrowest stretch in the state.

Western Maryland is more rural than the Washington-Baltimore area, where most of the state's population lives, and is noted for its mountainous terrain. The area is in the central Appalachians. Washington, Allegany, and Garrett counties are part of the Appalachian Regional Commission. The most populous community in Western Maryland is Hagerstown, located in Washington County, the most populous county in the region. Major highways in Western Maryland include Interstate Highways I-70, I-81 and I-68; U.S. Highways U.S. 11, U.S. 40, U.S. 40 ALT, U.S. 219 and U.S. 50; and several state highways.