August 22 - single car in to a tree

[3CATSAILOR]

This kind of reminds me of the movie Ground Hog Day. Same thing, over and over and over. MMMM, I wonder what could have caused this one? The County Commissioners must be getting tired of all of the people dying on our roads. They gave 42K for traffic safety. That's a cute sum of money. You need more like ten times that to have some impact on people driving like idiots. You will see the 42K will either dry up quickly or will be spent on something that has NOTHING to do with problem that continues to injure or kill people. Let me guess, lets spend it on a drunk driver or two. There's always plenty of them around since we continue to give out liquor licenses like candy to more and more places. The good news is that people that are texting on the phone are slowly but surely taking their own selves off of the highway. They either die or total the car they were driving. Either way, they are removed from the road for a while. The only problem is there is so many of them that do it. But, it does thin the heard. However, it's hell on telephone poles, electric poles and trees.

Mechanicsville, MD- A motor vehicle crash has been reported on Baptist Church Road in the area of Burning Oaks Drive. It is reported to be a single vehicle into a pole. units are on the scene.

 

[glhs837]

This kind of reminds me of the movie Ground Hog Day. Same thing, over and over and over. MMMM, I wonder what could have caused this one? The County Commissioners must be getting tired of all of the people dying on our roads. They gave 42K for traffic safety. That's a cute sum of money. You need more like ten times that to have some impact on people driving like idiots. You will see the 42K will either dry up quickly or will be spent on something that has NOTHING to do with problem that continues to injure or kill people. Let me guess, lets spend it on a drunk driver or two. There's always plenty of them around since we continue to give out liquor licenses like candy to more and more places. The good news is that people that are texting on the phone are slowly but surely taking their own selves off of the highway. They either die or total the car they were driving. Either way, they are removed from the road for a while. The only problem is there is so many of them that do it. But, it does thin the heard. However, it's hell on telephone poles, electric poles and trees.

Mechanicsville, MD- A motor vehicle crash has been reported on Baptist Church Road in the area of Burning Oaks Drive. It is reported to be a single vehicle into a pole. units are on the scene.

Hmm, 42K? Either something like a new blinky message board, maybe some overtime for speed enforcement, even though speed isn't really causing our crashes.

 

[stgislander]

At least it wasn't on that perfectly straight stretch of Rt-249 in Valley Lee.

 

[officeguy]

Why do you think it is the countys job to keep people from running into trees ?

 

[glhs837]

Why do you think it is the countys job to keep people from running into trees ?

It's the counties job to enhance public safety by enforcing the laws. Specifically those regarding unsafe driving behaviors. When we focus our enforcement efforts on things that do not cause crashes, we are not doing that job. You can ding people all day long for failure to signal and speeding, but if you don't enforce texting and cell phone usage laws with at least equal vigor, you are not doing that job properly.

 

[inkah]

It's the counties job.

Counties = plural county. He was right - just missing the apostrophe: county's

You are welcome.

 

[BernieP]

It's the counties job to enhance public safety by enforcing the laws. Specifically those regarding unsafe driving behaviors. When we focus our enforcement efforts on things that do not cause crashes, we are not doing that job. You can ding people all day long for failure to signal and speeding, but if you don't enforce texting and cell phone usage laws with at least equal vigor, you are not doing that job properly.

Follow the money, the amount of revenue, weighed against the cost to acquire the revenue.
My guess is speeding tickets are the easiest for the popo to write and provide the greatest return.
Speed can be measured, the rest is subjective. Not to many people challenge a speeding ticket, but how many challenge the other types?
That's time in court for LEOs

 

[officeguy]

It's the counties job to enhance public safety by enforcing the laws. Specifically those regarding unsafe driving behaviors. When we focus our enforcement efforts on things that do not cause crashes, we are not doing that job. You can ding people all day long for failure to signal and speeding, but if you don't enforce texting and cell phone usage laws with at least equal vigor, you are not doing that job properly.

If people run into trees, the texting thing is a self solving problem.

 

[Forkian]

People have been crashing cars since the first cars were made. Nothing new and more money will not stop it from happening.

 

[glhs837]

Follow the money, the amount of revenue, weighed against the cost to acquire the revenue.
My guess is speeding tickets are the easiest for the popo to write and provide the greatest return.
Speed can be measured, the rest is subjective. Not to many people challenge a speeding ticket, but how many challenge the other types?
That's time in court for LEOs

Nah, not money but metrics. You do have the challenge vs paid thing correct. Officers like getting into more vehicles, that's why they dont complain about doing the easy vs doing the best for safety.

If people run into trees, the texting thing is a self solving problem.

People have been crashing cars since the first cars were made. Nothing new and more money will not stop it from happening.

You could make the same argument about DUI, but we as a society have seen the overall cost of these things, not just to the offenders, but to innocents who interact with them. I would argue that phone distraction has overcome DUI as a cause of crashes. Yet we only enforce it when there's overtime money for it.

 

[3CATSAILOR]

Why do you think it is the County's job to keep people from running into trees ?

It sounds like our County Commissioners do. You will have to ask them why they are giving our "County" Sheriff's Office the money. I suspect they do not think the State is doing enough or they are overwhelmed. I suspect they are overwhelmed. In any case, the 42 K is a drop in a bucket to address this long term problem.

 

[3CATSAILOR]

It's the counties job to enhance public safety by enforcing the laws. Specifically those regarding unsafe driving behaviors. When we focus our enforcement efforts on things that do not cause crashes, we are not doing that job. You can ding people all day long for failure to signal and speeding, but if you don't enforce texting and cell phone usage laws with at least equal vigor, you are not doing that job properly.

The County and the State share the responsibility. The last I knew the County has one person assigned to traffic. How seriously "on a continuous basis" can you enforce traffic safety laws with one traffic unit? However, there are some road patrol deputies that pull a few over once in a while. But, the ones that do are endangered species. The people dying from distracted driving, namely texting is really piling up. But, yet I don't see the urgency in the Enterprise article to address THIS problem.