After Yesterday's Accident on 210

[GURPS]

I am sure there will be more calls for increased Police Patrols and Speed Cameras ....... however given that 75,000 cars a day travel 210 the percentages are pretty low for fatalities or accidents


75,000 x 260 working days = 19,500,000 cars a yr ... or 97 million during the period mentioned in the following article about 1500 crashes ...
for the 1st quoted paragraph .... the listed accidents were all after midnight ...
and the middle paragraph .... 10 yr period would be a total of 195 million cars would have traveled up and down 210 ... with ONLY 46 fatalities

https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...9137ba-3298-11e8-8abc-22a366b72f2d_story.html

Last year, seven people were killed in six crashes along the route. The incidents included a 2:35 a.m. crash July 21, involving a vehicle traveling in the wrong direction that hit another car head-on, killing both drivers. On Aug. 2, a motorcyclist was killed after running a red light and crashing into a car just after midnight. On Oct. 3, a driver was killed after his vehicle hit a guardrail just after midnight.

From 2007 to 2017, there were 46 fatal crashes resulting in 58 fatalities on Route 210, according to state records. Among those was an incident during an illegal street race. A car drove into a smoke-shrouded crowd of onlookers and killed eight, as two drivers roared off.

Speed and reckless driving were factors in many of the nearly 1,500 crashes recorded on the highway in a five-year period between 2012 and 2017, state and law enforcement officials say. About 41 percent of those occurred overnight, compared with 31 percent statewide, according to data provided by the Maryland State Highway Administration.

but by all means lets throw out Speed Cameras on 210 where people will speed along until approaching a camera zone, slam on the brakes then speed off once past a camera

 

[Gilligan]

but by all means lets throw out Speed Cameras on 210 where people will speed along until approaching a camera zone, slam on the brakes then speed off once past a camera

That's exactly how the South Koreans drive on their fancy new high speed interstates that all have speed cameras on them.

 

[glhs837]

And there's the fallacy of speed being a factor vs speed being a cause. If I cross the centerline at 70 instead of 55, while going 70 is a factor, crossing the center is the cause. Lets work causes, not factors. But working causescosts money, while speed cameras amke money. Of course, this ignores the fact that speed cameras can only be used inside a 1/2 mile circle around a school here in MD. So that limits where you can place them. Now, some places have gotten creative with what a "school" is, and while the State has specified that they must be placed on roadways that directly feed the school, a lot of places have ignored that and the State wont go after them, and the courts have said that citizens have no standing.

 

[officeguy]

210 is the one roadway where I want to see more cops. But not to get the easy pickings, the commuters who are going 10 over in a peloton of other cars going at the same speed. I want the cops to pull over
- the aggressive a-holes that weave through traffic
- the federal cops who drive like a-holes while playing video games on their issued laptops
- the dumptruck drivers who change lanes without regard to the safety of others.

And yes, out or the 60 there are a number of late night sportbike idiots and drunk drivers. Doesnt mean that the place isn't a madhouse during the day too.

What this road needs is to be re-signed as I295 and upgraded to a commuter interstate ending with an interchange with the cross county connector in Bryan's road so all the VA and St Mary's traffic can go down the new Billingsley and skip the Dorf alltogether. That would have been a worthwhile expenditure of the porkulus money in 2009 rather than re-paving freshly paved roads the way they did.

 

[glhs837]

210 is the one roadway where I want to see more cops. But not to get the easy pickings, the commuters who are going 10 over in a peloton of other cars going at the same speed. I want the cops to pull over
- the aggressive a-holes that weave through traffic
- the federal cops who drive like a-holes while playing video games on their issued laptops
- the dumptruck drivers who change lanes without regard to the safety of others.

And yes, out or the 60 there are a number of late night sportbike idiots and drunk drivers. Doesnt mean that the place isn't a madhouse during the day too.

What this road needs is to be re-signed as I295 and upgraded to a commuter interstate ending with an interchange with the cross county connector in Bryan's road so all the VA and St Mary's traffic can go down the new Billingsley and skip the Dorf alltogether. That would have been a worthwhile expenditure of the porkulus money in 2009 rather than re-paving freshly paved roads the way they did.

Here's the condensed opinons of LEOs I saw answering this type of question on the countries largest LEO message forum a few years back. Leadership needs citation numbers to justify hours spent/grant applications to fund enforcement hours, officers want to catch crackheads/drunks/folks with warrants. They both know that stopping 10 cars an hour for speeding increases the chances of getting one of those over stopping 5 cars an hour for the things you want them to enforce and reduces the number of citations that get grant money for enforcement.

 

[GURPS]

210 is the one roadway where I want to see more cops.

And yes, out or the 60 there are a number of late night sportbike idiots

to get the Summer Kamikaze Crotch Rocket Drivers doing wheelies @ 65 MPH - zipping in and out of traffic @ 70 and higher

 

[officeguy]

Here's the condensed opinons of LEOs I saw answering this type of question on the countries largest LEO message forum a few years back. Leadership needs citation numbers to justify hours spent/grant applications to fund enforcement hours, officers want to catch crackheads/drunks/folks with warrants. They both know that stopping 10 cars an hour for speeding increases the chances of getting one of those over stopping 5 cars an hour for the things you want them to enforce and reduces the number of citations that get grant money for enforcement.

And therein lies the problem. The police chief of PG and the superintendent of MSP see it as their job to create the maximal fine revenue for their respective employers. They are not interested in improving traffic safety. Pretty sad, but that's what it comes down to.