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Saturday, January 5, 2019

Crash killing 3 children renews safety concerns on one of Md.’s most dangerous roads

From Lynh Bui and Keith L. Alexander's January 4, 2019 report in The Washington Post:

Legislators and law enforcement called on drivers to exercise extra care on Indian Head Highway after a crash that killed three children last weekend again raised safety concerns about one of the busiest and most dangerous roads in the Washington region. 
Prince George’s County officials and Maryland state delegates also announced they would be pursuing legislation in coming months to increase the number of speed cameras along the 13-mile stretch of state highway.
“This is a death trap that should not be so,” Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks said. “This is a state road. We will be working with the governor and with the state who also have a responsibility to make sure that our families are safe when they’re driving down this road.”

Following are clips from the WJLA video of the press conference. (Click on the images for the clips):

County Executive Alsobrooks

Chief Stawinski

Senator Patterson

Delegate Valderrama

Council Member Anderson-Walker

Ron Weiss

About 10 minutes of  Q&A are at -14:35 of the video at https://wjla.com/news/local/indian-head-highway-crash-prevention-maryland

From WTOP: Although police stepped up enforcement on Indian Head Highway/Route 210 in each of the last three years, the number of accidents has remained about the same. There were 336 accidents in 2016, 329 in 2017, and 354 in 2018.
“We’ve gone from more than 3,600 traffic stops, to 5,600 traffic stops, to (in) 2018, more than 6,400 traffic stops,” Stawinski said.
“And I want you to know that the men and women of the Prince George’s County Police Department issued more than 10,000 citations in those 6,400 traffic stops, made more than 70 arrests and, yet, we still have this level of collision, this level of tragedy,” he added.