(Click on the image for Kristi King's WTOP report)
- Highway safety in the D.C. area is a “public health issue,” according to a local leader frustrated by steady year-over-year increases in traffic crashes, and a recent 45.76 percent jump in drunken driving fatalities.
- “There’s nothing really to cheer about with respect to highway safety in this region,” former chair of the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board, David Snyder said.
- Snyder notes the number of yearly crashes has risen from 52,318 in 2010 to 88,276 in 2017, “as result of ignoring the laws, driving too fast for conditions, being distracted, failure to wear seat belts — and as we’ve heard from these reports, we really haven’t won the war against driving under the influence either.”
- “This is a serious public health issue, and the region needs to focus on this more than we have done so far,” Snyder said. “And it’s not just government — it’s each and every person out there on the roads.”
- Maryland lawmakers are now considering legislation to make repeat drunk driving a felony punishable up to ten years. This is the third year in a row Maryland Governor Larry Hogan has proposed the Repeat Drunk Driving Offenders Act.