Highway protection advocates say the numbers fit their revel in alongside Maryland Course 210, a six-lane, in large part instantly stretch with busy trade and home intersections south of the country’s capital. It is known as Indian Head Freeway, however some name it “the freeway of loss of life,” a nod to dozens of deadly injuries during the last decade.
“That is the riskiest factor that individuals do: Force on those highways,” Ron Weiss, an army veteran who advocates for decreasing collisions in this roadway, advised CNN. “I need to come house to my circle of relatives. I would like my youngsters to come back house, my spouse to come back house secure.”
A lot of the street is marked with a velocity prohibit of 55 mph, however Weiss says county velocity cameras remaining 12 months stuck greater than 12,000 cars hitting 70 mph or extra. The best recorded velocity remaining 12 months used to be 149 mph, consistent with his team, the Course 210 Visitors Protection Committee.
“It is a instantly shot. It is a raceway,” Weiss defined. “If you wish to velocity, that is where to do it.”
The newest loss of life on Indian Head Freeway used to be about two weeks in the past, when a rear-end collision led to two cars to burst into flame.
Deaths are the end of the iceberg. NHTSA says there may be one loss of life for each 18 folks hospitalized and each 400 injured in transportation incidents.
Now the choice of miles American citizens pressure day by day is at the build up once more. Officers say the reckless traits proceed.
“This can be a nationwide disaster,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stated remaining week, saying a multipronged plan to make roads, drivers and automobiles more secure. “In a well-designed machine, protection measures be sure that human fallibility does now not result in human fatalities.”
The plan requires encouraging more secure riding, higher protective pedestrians and cyclists, restricting highway speeds and making improvements to emergency clinical maintain crash sufferers.
‘Preventable crashes’
Nationwide Transportation Protection Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy says the issue requires coverage adjustments. It’s “devastating,” she stated, to fulfill with relations of car crash sufferers and inform them officers had now not acted on NTSB suggestions that would possibly have stored a beloved one’s lifestyles.
“We’ve got roads which can be designed for environment friendly commute, now not for protection,” she stated. “Those are preventable crashes.”
Amongst NTSB’s freeway protection suggestions that it considers crucial for presidency officers to behave on are expanding enforcement and schooling campaigns; requiring cars to come back with collision caution and automated braking methods; and distracted riding insurance policies that acknowledge even hands-free gadgets take a driving force’s consideration clear of the street.
“Our teenagers are riding essentially the most unsafe cars — the used automobiles, those with out the brand new generation,” Homendy stated. “Auto producers price a top rate for that generation.”
The Rev. Robert Display, who is additionally a part of the Course 210 Visitors Protection Committee, sees the tragedies all too regularly on Indian Head Freeway, which connects his house and ministry. He issues out that highway design adjustments will lend a hand, however can cross simplest to this point.
“It is the drawback of the driving force, individually,” he stated. “We’ve got that small phase of the riding public that also continues to do egregious conduct, that also continues to do the type of issues which can be outlandish they usually proceed to provide the tragedies that we nonetheless have.”
His team has labored to place extra velocity detection cameras at the roadside and advocates expanding the fines for violators. He needs to construct a mindset the place reckless drivers “be mindful the fines, the place they be mindful the type of punishment that is going in conjunction with it.”
AAA helps regulation for Indian Head Freeway that might build up the consequences for drivers accused of racing and make allowance police to impound their cars. The crowd’s coverage supervisor in Maryland, Ragina Ali, not too long ago advised state lawmakers that “velocity kills and our roadways and parking quite a bit aren’t racetracks.”
Cynthia Jones needs extra in style use of ignition interlock gadgets to ensure drivers are sober. She misplaced her sister Karen in a March 2000 crash to a under the influence of alcohol driving force on Indian Head Freeway. He slammed into her whilst she used to be solving a unfastened gasoline cap.
“She would need me out right here to make a distinction in saving extra lives,” Jones stated. “As a result of she did not have to head that method.”
