If you were hurt in College Park by a careless driver, property owner or institution, Blank Kim Injury Law can represent you. We do not have an office in College Park. Claims from here are handled by our Silver Spring office, about five miles west in a straight line, and we can do the whole case review by phone, which suits students and out-of-state families.
College Park is in Prince George’s County, so its injury cases go to Prince George’s County courts, not the Montgomery County courts in Rockville. And because the University of Maryland is a state university, an injury involving the university itself can follow government claim rules with much shorter deadlines.
Pedestrians and cyclists on Route 1 and around campus
Baltimore Avenue (US 1) runs straight through College Park and past the university, lined with apartments, restaurants and bus stops. Students and residents cross it on foot, on bikes and on scooters, often at night. The claims we see from this corridor are mostly people on foot or on two wheels hit by drivers who were turning, speeding or not watching the crosswalk.
University Boulevard (MD 193), Paint Branch Parkway, Campus Drive and the Capital Beltway exits add their own traffic. Riders on the area’s trails, including the Paint Branch and Northeast Branch trails, meet cars at road crossings.
If you were struck while walking or riding, your own personal injury protection may pay toward medical bills and lost wages even though you were on foot, because PIP follows the person as well as the vehicle. See our pages on pedestrian accident claims and bicycle accident claims.
Crashes in Purple Line construction zones
The Purple Line light rail is being built through College Park, with a route along Campus Drive and stations serving the university and the College Park Metro. Construction has brought lane shifts, detours, closed sidewalks and heavy equipment to streets people use every day.
A construction-zone crash or fall can involve more than one responsible party: the driver who hit you, a contractor that set up the work zone, or the public agency behind the project. Each has different insurance and, for a public agency, written notice rules. Photograph the signs, barriers and detour layout as they were, because a work zone can look completely different a week later. Our construction injury page covers injuries to workers and the public around job sites.
When the University of Maryland is involved
The University of Maryland, College Park is a public university. A claim against it, for example a fall on a poorly maintained campus walkway or a crash with a university vehicle or Shuttle-UM bus, is a claim against the State. Claims against a government can require written notice much sooner, often within one year, so do not wait to see how an injury develops.
Private landlords are different. Many students live in privately owned apartment buildings along Route 1, and injuries from unsafe stairs, broken locks or poor lighting there are claims against the owner and its insurer. See slip and fall claims and negligent security claims.
Students who were sexually assaulted or abused on campus or by university staff can find information on university sexual abuse claims. Those claims are handled confidentially.
Police, courts and hospitals for College Park claims
- Police reports can come from Prince George’s County Police, the University of Maryland Police Department on and around campus, or the Maryland State Police on the Beltway. We request the report from whichever agency responded.
- Courts. Prince George’s County civil cases are filed in the Circuit Court in Upper Marlboro, the county seat. Smaller claims can be heard in the District Court, which has courthouses in Upper Marlboro and Hyattsville.
- Hospitals. Seriously injured people are often taken to UM Capital Region Medical Center in Largo, the county’s trauma center, or to hospitals in Washington, D.C. Being treated in D.C. does not change which state’s law applies to a crash that happened in Maryland.
- Dog bites in College Park are reported to Prince George’s County Animal Services. Maryland law presumes the owner knew or should have known the dog was dangerous once it causes injury. See dog bite claims.
Metro’s Green Line and Metrobus serve College Park too. An injury on a Metro train, platform or bus is a claim against WMATA, which has its own notice rules. See Metro and Metrobus injury claims.
Communities around College Park we cover
Along with College Park itself, we represent people from Greenbelt, Lanham, New Carrollton, Goddard, Adelphi, Langley Park and Hillandale, all served from our Silver Spring office. These are communities we cover, not office locations.
Two local details matter. Hillandale sits largely across the line in Montgomery County, so a crash there may belong in Montgomery County courts instead. And Langley Park is home to a large Spanish-speaking community: most of our paralegals speak Spanish, and you can read more about our Spanish-speaking injury team.
