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Posts Tagged ‘pandemic’
Police said that John Barr, 82, of Essex, was driving a 1994 Chevrolet Celebrity station wagon south on Stemmers Run Road when a 2000 Nissan truck driven by Elmer Williams, 51, ran a red light at the intersection with Eastern Boulevard, striking the station wagon at about 2:30 p.m.
via Baltimore County police identify man, 82, killed in Essex crash – baltimoresun.com.
(Red-light runners kill people. Red-light and stop-sign running are part of the state-wide pandemic of reckless driving in Maryland. Almost everyone does it. It appears that if you continue to do it you run a great risk of either killing another or being killed yourself.
This holiday season give yourself the gift of safe driving. Your life may depend upon it. Be an example setter to Marylanders.)
HANCOCK — A 73-year-old Hancock man was killed Thursday night when he was struck by a car as he was walking across Md. 144 at Casper Road to retrieve his mail, Maryland State Police said.
Read the ENTIRE story at the Herald-Mail.com:
via Maryland: Pedestrian killed near Hancock.
(We don’t know what happened other than a pedestrian was killed. Imagine living a wonderful life. You are 73 years old. One day while you are going out to the curb to check your mail, WHAM! You’re dead. The driver of the car has to live with the guilt the rest of her life. Making things much worse of course is that we are in the Christmas season.
Perhaps this is a good time for everyone to make the commitment to drive safely. Drive to arrive – alive. Drive to be conscious of the safety of those around you.
Th bad-driving pandemic that plagues our state will never subside UNLESS each of us makes a conscious decision to change our driving behavior. There are too many Marylanders driving as though they are immortal even when six-hundred die in Maryland every year. Countless animals are killed, people are injured.
Stop at stop signs and red lights out of respect for the law and the safety of others.
End aggressive behaviors that make our highways dangerous.
Do not drink and drive.
Set an EXAMPLE for others this holiday season. It may be the greatest gift you can give. Fewer dead and injured during the holidays is a great idea. You think?)
For the past two years StopBigBrotherMD.org has been documenting the expansion of speed cameras in Maryland. Last year a bill sponsored championed by Governor O’Malley authorized the use of speed cameras in school zones and freeway work zones anywhere in the state. We argued that this new power would be abused, that it would diminish the legal rights of drivers, subject drivers to mass surveillance, and that it would be viewed as a cash cow by local governments and a way of taxing out of town drivers.
Read the ENTIRE article at StopBigBrotherMD.org:
(StoptheMUD.org (no affiliation) has mixed feelings. On the one hand, unsafe driving in Maryland is pandemic. Aggressive behavior is common. Few people stop at red lights and stop signs especially for right turns. Traffic deaths remain in the 500-600 range every year. Then on the other you have politicians that look more to traffic cams as revenue generators after having skipped education and traffic enforcement. Red light cams make enforcement less personal and that’s good for the politician because then the politician does not have to support the police and really tick off constituents.
There are way too many bad drivers but StoptheMUD believes the problem is best fixed by our citizens deciding to obey the law. There would be NO REASON for traffic cams if most of us drove safely and not the other way round. Our energy should be directed at changing behaviors that are killing people. )
SOLOMONS,MD – Thursday morning, Sept, 15, 2010, a friend called me to say she had received a radar speeding ticket for sixty-four MPH in a fifty five zone. I immediately thought, this is police theater.
Traffic approaching the Thomas Johnson Bridge on Highway 4 at Solomons is notorious. Speed is not the only problem but police seem focused only on speed. Aggressive driving is pandemic at this location making it a very unsafe place to drive. Drivers regularly make unsafe lane changes, tailgate, prevent others form merging into the bridge lane, as well as speed. And, I’m thinking that the recommended speed limit as you enter Solomons is actually forty-five MPH isn’t it? The bridge speed limit is fifty MPH as I recall.
It seems speed traps are the enforcement norm in Calvert County. Identifying and citing aggressive drivers must be much more difficult or convictions are hard to obtain. There must be some reason speed seems to be so important to the police. Perhaps it’s revenue? Each speeding ticket is eighty dollars or more. The officer gets a bunch of speeding tickets and the state gets some real cash.
As dangerous as highway four is at Solomons, I have always hoped that the reckless aggressives that pass through on the highway would someday be targeted. Yes the folks that are driving to work and speeding also need to be reminded of the danger and some are the aggressive types, but it sure seems that our state is filled with more dangerous scofflaws. What will it take to get a traffic officer behind a speeding driver, that is also tailgating, making unsafe lanes changes, and blocking others? What is it going to take?
Cameras will already nail you if you’re speeding or running a red light but be warned, next time you illegally pass a school bus, you might find yourself in another photo.
Read the ENTIRE story at WJZ:
via Frederick County School Buses Get Cameras – wjz.com.
(Can you believe that the unsafe driving pandemic has brought us this far? Maryland motorists have decided to drive badly. Maryland public safety is stepping up enforcement and buying new tools to help deal with the worst of the worst. Makes you wonder about us.)
Maryland State Police say aggressive driving can lead to road rage, and the number of accidents tied to aggressive driving jumped 63 percent in the state between 2004 and 2008. Also, the number of deaths blamed on aggressive driving increased 9% during the same time period.
via Police believe road rage may have led to murder – wtop.com.
(Maryland please read this article at WTOP. Aggressive driving is PANDEMIC in our state. The only one that can change it is YOU!)
“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.)
On Friday, April 23, officers from St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office in cooperation with the Maryland State Police and the Calvert County Sheriff’s Office will conduct a joint border to border sobriety checkpoint. Checkpoints are designed not only to arrest impaired drivers, deter others from driving impaired, and raise public awareness of law enforcement and other efforts to reduce and enforce impaired driving laws.
Read the ENTIRE story at TheBayNet:
(This is what we call politically correct police theater. If you have never seen a checkpoint it is indeed something to see. The first thing that came to my mind was, “How much does all of this cost? Wouldn’t the public be better served given our aggressive driving pandemic by having the officers on the road doing real police work?” There is aggressive enforcement and there is theater. This is theater and I cannot be anything but skeptical about its usefulness.)
“Most of us who have teenage kids understand what a big impact this law will have,” said Sen. E.J. Pipkin (R-Queen Anne's). “We need to educate our citizens, not turn them into lawbreakers.”
He also predicted the bill would be “a blank check for law enforcement to pull law-abiding citizens over.”
Read the ENTIRE story at the Washington Post:
via Maryland Politics – Md. Senate passes ban on handheld cell phone use while driving.
(I am flabbergasted at this mentality. A citizen chatting or texting on a cellular telephone while driving is a hazard to him/herself and others. Has Pipkin read the news accounts that equate distracted driving with drunk driving? A stronger law, than the one passed, is no different than the codes that require drivers to follow certain rules. The problem is that drivers in Maryland do not now follow all of the rules. We have too many injured, maimed, and dead to continue worrying about whether a citizen might be offended by a citation! As to whether it is a blank check or not what does that mean? If you are breaking the law you are breaking the law. Last time I attended police training police were taught the letter of the law as well as the spirit of the law. My issue with current enforcement in Maryland is that it is already too politically correct and theatrical. The chances of officers deciding that they will pull over every driver talking is unlikely and sadly might also call attention to their own behavior. I regularly MSP officers on their cell phones. What’s required in Maryland is a shift from a pandemic culture of recklessness to one of safety. Citizens could do this all on their own if they CHOSE to. They currently choose recklessness. I am as conservative as the next guy but I am not so blind that I can’t see the forest for the trees. It is a madhouse of unsafe driving out there. The Maryland lawmakers need to wake up.)
In Maryland, you can’t write or send a text while you’re driving. But soon, you may be able to write or send one while you’re sitting in traffic or at a stoplight.
Read the ENTIRE story at NBCWashington.com:
via Texting in Traffic May Be Allowed in Maryland | NBC Washington.
(This is NOT good news. Whomever wanted this compromise needs a lesson in traffic safety. This is going to encourage people to pick up their phone (distracted) as they approach a controlled intersection. Perhaps rear end collisions at stop signs and stop lights will now go up. Expect to sit and wait behind people texting at stop signs and stop lights. This is a ridiculous idea. The pandemic of unsafe driving in Maryland is not improved by going soft on texting.
Anytime an engine is on or a vehilce is in the traffic lane, cellular telephone use should be PROHIBITED. As AT&T says – “IT CAN WAIT!”
Maryland residents you need to wake up and take responsibility for this vote. You put these representatives there.)
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