Faster, better…

Posts Tagged ‘traffic’

(CalvertNews.Info via DIGG) CALVERT COUNTY, MD – On April 25, 2009 at 8:00 am, over 300 cyclists will be mounting up and hitting the roads in the first annual End Hunger In Calvert County Bike Ride. Riders from throughout the metropolitan area and as far away as Maine will arrive with one goal in mind: to help feed hungry families in Calvert.

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By Jim Schultz, REDDING.COM-Saturday, April 4, 2009 A Shingletown woman was sentenced Friday to six years in prison after being convicted last month of gross vehicular manslaughter for ramming into the back of a car in 2007 while texting on a cell phone.

Excerpt:

And despite heartfelt claims from Matis-Engle’s friends that she was a caring, loving and gentle person, Beatty said it was clear to her that the woman’s personality changed dramatically when behind the wheel of a vehicle.

“She drove without any concept that people might be in her path,” Beatty said.

Bridgett said that Matis-Engle used her cell phone to conduct three separate bill-paying transactions in the final four minutes before the collision and was in the middle of one of those transactions when she slammed into Winn’s car.”

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Yesterday Maryland just passed a law allowing the use of Speed Cameras in the entire state. They’re currently in use in Montgomery County, where the Police that receive speeding tickets themselves refuse to pay the tickets. The law says the owner of the vehicle has to pay the fine – and they don’t own the cop cars… so they refuse to pay.

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The Maryland Senate changed its mind and passed a law it had just defeated that will allow cameras to issue speeding tickets within a five mile radius of schools and work zones.

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(CalvertNews.info 032309) – Another fatal crash at Jewel Rd and Rt 260. Read the details at CalvertNews.info. Young driver violated dead driver’s right of way making a left onto the highway.

(Ed note: Having had a family member in a serious highway crash, I would be interested to know the contributing factors as well as the primary collision factors. Did the driver coast through the stop sign? If he stopped did he look both ways? Was anyone on a cell phone? Stop sign compliance in Maryland is almost non-existent for right or left turns. What’s missing from this article is what behavior changes might have prevented this collision and that a preventable collision is not an accident.”

In response to car accidents caused by text messaging and health concerns of minors in automobiles, the Maryland General Assembly is considering heavier restrictions against motorists’ freedoms.

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This one was real close to home. The specifics are not yet known but a man was killed at this intersection the evening of march 6, 2009.

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Apparently in Maryland it was legal, until February 20 of this year, to change lanes without signaling. It all makes sense now. Everyone drives like they are omnipotent NASCAR racers. Even police don’t signal. Well Maryland is finally out of the dark ages realizing what a rolling multi-ton pile of metal can do to the human body–many deaths later. It is now illegal to change lanes without signaling. This should be one more tool in a police officer’s fight against aggressive drivers. Three violations in a row are required for reckless aggressive driving citations and one of those in the state of California has always been failure to signal when changing lanes.

I’m happy that this little over sight was corrected. Now it will, unfortunately, take generations to bring Maryland drivers up to par with the safer states. Are there safer states? Post for another time.

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