Stop the Maryland Unsafe Driver

Posts Tagged ‘driving safety’

We took the time to collect great titles on driving safety as well as books with a focus on Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay. Every purchase from our book store using any of our Amazon links supports development of this website. Please take a moment to visit the STOPtheMUD Bookstore.

VBF has the bad news that the Three Foot Passing and Following too close law was tabled in the House Transportation Committee by what was eventually an 11-10 vote. Someone who was there wrote:

via TheWashCycle.com:

StoptheMUD’s comment below: (By the way, please do visit “The Wash Cycle.”

(I’m a Republican and I believe in the Maryland three-foot bicycle safety rule. One wonders the real reason why a Republican in Virginia is keeping bicycling risks greater by ignoring the three foot rule. My experience driving in Virginia says to me that it is equally as dangerous as driving in Maryland and perhaps even more so.  The cry for the three-foot rule is a cry for driving safety as well. Like seat belt enforcement the three-foot rule is  a round-a-bout way to mitigate the carnage because driving safety is not a priority for individual residents of Maryland or Virginia. We’re using these laws to wake people up and give law enforcement some way to issue citations to the most egregiously unsafe among us.

Then we do have to stop and point out that states are asking for and getting special legislation to protect police officers on their traffic stops and those laws require drivers to move to another lane or slow down sharply as a courtesy to the officer. Fine. Extend the same courtesy to the rest of us and also encourage police and their families driving cars with police vanity plates to start obeying traffic laws.

Government is not doing well here. It sends confusing message, obfuscates debate, and only tends to do what garners a vote. Government can’t really help us. What is required is that every Virginian and ever Marylander make the choice to drive safely. Then government is out of the picture. Existing laws, it might be argued, already protect pedestrians and bicyclists.  If those laws are not working then we need to find out why, but first everyone needs to obey the traffic regulations and drive safely.

There is also the “Get Off the BUS option. States that are not considered “bicycle safety conscious” could be designated “Bicycle Unfriendly States.” Either get off that BUS and join us or we won’t bicycle in your state. You cannot ride where you do not feel safe. Maryland seems to be improving in that area but not Virginia.)

Ongoing residential construction on three projects in Silver Spring needlessly closed sidewalks, forcing pedestrians to either navigate confusing, circuitous detours or to walk in the roadway. For neighbors, it’s been an ongoing nightmare.

via Silver Spring construction shuts sidewalks, violating policy – Greater Greater Washington.

(Pedestrian safety is as important, if not more so, than driving safety. After all, a pedestrian is not seat belted inside of a large metal shell. When a vehicle or a city government does something to put a pedestrian at risk it is generally noticed right away as is the case with this construction work in Silver Spring, Maryland. (All one has to do to find a contradiction even to this however is watch how most people driving in the parking lots of malls and grocery stores.)

Maybe I’m cynical, but I have to ask. Why are most of us not as worried about our driving? If it’s a nightmare to walk in the road why are we not asking how come? Why are we not making the plight of the Silver Spring Pedestrian less of a nightmare?

Whether to driver safely or not is a personal decision that each of us has to make. Our vehicles are not controlled like the cars in a child’s road-race set. Behind each steering wheel is one brain, one mind, making a choice to drive safely or like a pinhead.

Where’s the sudden outcry and the rage about how so many Marylanders place us at risk each day on the highway?)

“Just before Thomas Johnson bridge to St. Marys county. 45mph zone that nobody sees or cares about. State and local boys set up shop on south bound shoulder just after curve in front of Navy Recreation Center. Have seen as many as eleven squad cars at once!”

(A VERY revealing insight into the mind of the Maryland Unsafe Driver:)

via Solomons Maryland Speed Traps | The National Speed Trap Exchange.

The NMA website has a sister site that lists popular locations of police radar enforcement. They call them speed traps.  While I hate to use this language, the moron who left the above comment regarding frequent police presence on southbound Route 4 at the Navy Rec Center is too removed from reality to understand the reason for the 45 MPH speed limit at this location. The comment is telling about the mindset of the majority of drivers in our state. The mindless drivel of this contributor makes us wonder how the guy matured enough to even get a driver’s license.

As you enter Solomons, Maryland you must slow to 45 MPH. The Route 4 posted speed limit is 55 MPH but colloquially the speeds are 65 plus with a large percentage at well over 70.   Drivers DO NOT slow down at the speed limit change.  Drivers continue on as though no hazards and no populated community even exists.

As drivers pass the firehouse on Route 4 the jockeying for position at high speed begins.  Drivers in the number one lane tighten up their distance from each other to prevent drivers from the number two lane from merging left. A merge is required to continue travel over the southbound lane of the Thomas Johnson Bridge into St. Mary’s County. Aggressive drivers in the number two lane are more than willing to change lanes quickly without signaling.

The aggressives ignore or hassle drivers traveling locally. Solomons is a local shopping and residential area. It is also the location of Southern Maryland’s largest senior community, a major Naval recreation community, and an extremely popular boating, fishing, and harbor location.

The idiot writing the description of the “speed trap” hasn’t put all of this together. The right turns, left turns, the boats being towed on trailers, the traffic forming up for the bridge, the presence of a major fire house, and the fact that Solomons is a major recreational and tourist location does not play into this moron’s way of thinking. Driving safety doesn’t apply only his desire to drive as he pleases regardless of everyone else.

The police are there because this stretch is a very dangerous location where few drivers obey the traffic regulations.

So is this guy your hero? He isn’t ours.  At StoptheMUD we are happy that the police cite law breakers at this location. What might be as productive is citing the tailgaters and aggressive drivers that drive through here on an hourly basis.
You can watch the MUD on a state camera positioned on the St. Marys side of the bridge if you are curious.

How we think of traffic regulations needs to change. The regulations are there not because the state is trying to control the masses for no good reason. The traffic regulations and laws are there to remind drivers that if we all observe them we might LIVE to reach our destination.  We would wager that a number of residents of the Solomons do CARE about the driving behaviors moving toward and off of the bridge. They might even wish the moron would take the long way around if he minds so much that he has to drive safely in their community.

Colored lights are now going up on the DUI Victim’s Trees. Over the holiday weekend there were 13 alcohol related crashes that injured 11 people, so 11 green bulbs will go up on the trees at Beebe, Kent General, Milford and A-I DuPont hospitals. No red lights have been added – signifying alcohol related deaths. Last year, the Victim’s Trees ended the holiday season with 4 red bulbs and 49 green bulbs.

Read the ENTIRE story at WGND.COM. These folks care  about driving safety. Visit the Talk of DelmarVa:

via First green lights on DUI Victims Trees in Delaware – WGMD.COM.

Cars and bicycles are to driving as boats and kayaks or canoes are to boating.

Boaters must watch their wakes near smaller vessels. Large unexpected wakes can swamp or capsize a small vessel. Twice in the last year boaters exiting Breezy Point Harbor have deliberately created a large wake to make transit difficult by smaller craft. Last week I was knocked broadside into the gas dock by and older man and woman leaving the harbor well in excess of the posted speed leaving a large wake.

Every boater KNOWS they are responsible for their wake and the damage that wake can do. Some inconsiderate boaters would rather use their wake to make a statement about the presence of human powered craft rather than share the water.

This person’s actions were infuriating. The occupants smiled at me as they left on their trip while I kept my craft from capsizing.

In Maryland boating enforcement is focused on waters that have the most public activity. This fella and his squeeze may never see the Natural Resources Police or the Coast Guard using Breezy Point as a home port. My guess is they know it so they believe they can get away with obnoxious behaviors.

I’d like to see an officer rotating a presence at smaller ports of call watching for behavior like this, reminding or citing boaters that fail to observe the rules. DNR and the Coast Guard have volunteers that could sit on the fuel docks to watch, observe, and advise the errant boater and if necessary write down the boater’s vessel registration number for reporting to the law enforcement arm of each service.

The bad boater apparently doesn’t know that persons are more likely to perish in a smaller craft.  Acting out as an aggressive-angry fool contributes to that risk. The behavior is reckless, dangerous, and irresponsible. No point is proven other than the responsible party is an egregiously unsafe boater.

“A longtime resident of Upper Marlboro and practicing attorney for the last 46 years, Vallario, 73, said that if re-elected for a 10th term, his priorities would include finding ways to pay teachers more so they stay in local schools and pushing for progress on stalled road-improvement projects”

STOPtheMUD recommends voting Joseph Vallario OUT of office. We are more likely to see effective legislation with Vallario as a retired citizen instead of a law maker. Prince George’s County and Calvert County residents in District 27A need to vote for the candidate they think best represents driving safety.

Read an article from Gazette.Net published in July regarding Vallario’s re-election bid:

via Dist. 27A delegate seeks re-election.

(Republican candidates are:

Mike Hethmon

Antoinette “Toni” Jarboe-Duley

Google’s Flintsones tribute earlier this week has sparked a concern for Bedrock’s enforcement of vehicular child safety laws.

via The Flintstones: Fifty Years of Irresponsible Driving – PCWorld.

(Maybe, just maybe, this article might help someone that has never taken driving safety seriously. Thank you PC World.)

Our average number of traffic dead in Maryland is at least one dead every day and it has been approaching two.

Will you be the next dead driver?

Drive to arrive alive and wear your seat belt. Driving safety begins with each of us.

“A lot of motorists complain that bicyclists don’t follow the same rules they do. They point fingers at two-wheelers for blowing through stoplights and failing to come to a full stop at stop signs.”

via Given new protections, bicyclists should wear helmets – baltimoresun.com.

(WHOA! The Sun needs to get out more. It is a cultural norm for Marylanders to glide through stop signs whether on bicycles, in cars, trucks, public safety vehicles. It is part of the unsafe driving-pandemic.  Sit  at several intersections and count the violators! Stopping is the exception and NOT the rule.

Driving safety isn’t a “you owe me for a sacrifice” situation. Driving safely is NOT a sacrifice. (Justifying bad behavior by pointing at other bad behavior.) Asking for the three-foot rule was another attempt to mitigate the carnage instead of dealing with the problem – unsafe drivers and yes, perhaps even unsafe cyclists.

I rarely see bicyclists without helmets.  Given the helmet laws around the US and the overall awareness of same, I don’t lose sleep over the fool that decides not to wear one. My guess is it is an event that is considerably more rare than the drivers that fail to drive safely among cyclists and pedestrians. In my humble cyclist opinion.

Oh and, STOP does mean STOP.)