MD 210 Highway of Death

Did you know that there were 10 fatalities on MD 210 and close to 80 deaths since the recording of such statistics?  Did you also know there are only 3 cameras along this road and the fine is a mere $40 regardless of the speed?  Learn more about proposed legislation to curtail speeding on this episode of APIL with Tamara Davis Brown.

Transcript

Tamara Davis Brown: 0:03

Hi, welcome to another episode of All Politics is Local, the Maryland edition with me, your host, Tamara Davis Brown. Today we are going to be speaking on two local bills introduced in the Prince George's County House delegation that involve Maryland 210, a Maryland State Highway. For those of you who do not live in the area, you still may want to listen up because, again, as I mentioned in my introductory podcast, Maryland is a very progressive state, and so there are some bills that we are introducing that may be of interest to you in your local jurisdiction. Maryland 210 is a state highway that runs north and south from the District of Columbia line to the Charles County line. However, residents even south of Charles County also traverse that roadway. What's interesting about Maryland 210 is on the east side is primarily a residential area, while on the west side there's many commercial areas. And so residents sometimes walk. We have pedestrians and sometimes bicyclists who try to traverse Maryland 210. And unfortunately, with people driving at high rates of speed, there have been lots of accidents and unfortunately lots of fatalities. In 2022 alone, there were 10 fatalities on Maryland 210. And since the recording of not only crashes and accidents and fatalities along this road, there have been almost 80 fatalities along Maryland 210. And unfortunately, it has been given the infamous name of the highway of death. And so, in order to try to deal with the high rates of speed and speeding that occurs on this roadway, our delegate, uh Chris Valderama, who is the one of three delegates in the 26th legislative district, introduced two bills, local bills here in Prince George's County. Now, local bills are bills that only affect residents of that particular county or jurisdiction. It does not affect residents of other areas. However, this bill will affect areas outside of the county if you happen to traverse that roadway. And I know residents of Virginia happen to travel on Maryland 210, residents of Charles County for sure, because they come through Prince George's County when leaving their jurisdiction, trying to go to either Virginia or to the District of Columbia. And again, like I said, residents south of Charles County may also be traversing that roadway. So the first bill uh is HB431. And the good news is that the Prince George's County House delegation has passed uh both bills out of their delegation. And so now they are getting ready to go to the House Committee on Environment and Transportation. So they now have a regular bill number. The first bill, House Bill 431, is speed monitoring systems on Maryland to 10 penalties. This bill addresses the penalties for speeding along Maryland 210. Currently, the speed limit on Maryland 210 is 55 miles an hour. And if you go above 12 miles an hour, is when the penalties actually start currently. So that's not much of a deterrent. And the purpose of this bill is to actually deter and slow speeders down on this stretch of roadway. So if a driver is driving anywhere from 12 to 20 miles per hour, that means they're going 76 miles and higher, the fine remains at $40. If a driver is driving 22 to 31 miles per hour over the speed limit, meaning they are driving somewhere between 77 and 86 miles per hour, the penalty increases to $90. Third, if a driver is going 32 to 41 miles per hour over the speed limit, meaning they are driving between 87 and 96 miles per hour, the penalty increases to $160. Next, if a driver is driving between 42 and 51 miles per hour over the 55 mile per hour speed limit, which means they're driving anywhere between 97 and 106 miles per hour, the penalty is $290. And then finally, if a driver's driving 52 miles an hour or above, meaning they're driving 107 miles per hour and higher. And yes, 2022, we had one driver that was clocked in excess of 160 miles per hour on Maryland 210. The new penalty would be $530. So as you can see, the more aggressive you drive, the higher the speeds you drive, the higher fines you shall receive. In addition, HB 431 also fines drivers that are repeat offenders. As I mentioned earlier, the current fine, if you're driving 12 miles per hour or higher over the speed limit, you only get a $40 ticket. Many people just pay that. It's not much of a deterrent and they keep going and keep speeding along that stretch of roadway. However, within a two-year period, if you receive a second infraction, that means in addition to whatever the fine is that I just mentioned above, you'll get an additional fine of $50. Within a two-year period, if you get a third infraction, you've re got caught speeding three times. The additional fine is $150. A fourth violation will result in an additional $250. A fifth violation will result in a fine of $300. And then for a sixth or any subsequent violation within a two-year period, you will get an additional $350. And so not only are we trying to increase the the fines for speeding with the aggressiveness and the higher speeds, but we're also trying to curtail people from repeat offending and repeat driving. So that is the first bill that has been introduced and has successfully voted out of delegation from Prince George's County House delegation. The second bill, its companion bill, is HB 435. And it governs the number of speed cameras, and it also removes the sunset clause for the speed cameras along 210. So if you know anything about Maryland 210, particularly as the further south you go, it gets just straight highway. And you can literally just hit the pedal to the metal and keep moving. And so currently we only have three speed cameras under the current law. And so HB 435 increases the number of speed cameras from three to ten so that we can catch speeders on both the northbound side and the southbound side and have enough to make a difference in terms of this the speeding that is going on on that stretch of roadway. It also removes a sunset clause. So initially the speed cameras were only a I wouldn't say a pilot, but they wanted to see how much of a deterrent the current cameras were and the bill would expire and is due to expire on September 30th, 2023. Well, HB 435 would remove the sunset clause altogether, meaning that the speed cameras will be here to stay permanently. And so we want you to support both HB 431 and HB 435. Those bills, again, have now been voted completely out of the Prince George's County House delegation. They are now before the full House Committee of Environment and Transportation. And so now we need our residents, our local residents, to contact the members of the House Delegation, Environment and Transportation Committee. And those bills will be moving fast. Again, Maryland is in just a 90-day session, and I can't believe a third of the session is already about to be passed. So we want to make sure that residents get in touch with their legislators as well as any member of the Environment and Transportation Committee to support this bill. And that's not the purpose of this bill. The purpose of this bill only is to impact Maryland 210, the deadliest highway, not only in the state, but really on the Eastern Corridor. So it's not applicable to other highways in the state of Maryland. And again, the reason is because we have had the most crashes, accidents, and fatalities than any of the other state roadways in the state of Maryland. So this bill does not impact the fine, which will remain at $40 for other state roads. It'll just impact Maryland to 10. The other good thing is many residents I hear complain about the speed cameras and red light cameras and other cameras and say, oh, this is just another money-making venture for government to get money from us to extract money from residents. However, the difference is all of the funds that are collected for fines that are imposed on drivers for speeding actually go back to help improve Maryland 210. So if you are a resident here, you know that we just got the brand new overpass at Kirby Hill Road. It took a tremendous amount of time and millions of dollars to complete. So that's the very next one. So while some of the funds that generally go to for the speed camera kind of go into a general fund or general transportation fund, the funds specifically for fines on this stretch of roadway go to help to improve the road conditions along Maryland 210, help to build those overpasses, to help put up new lights. We now, some of you may have seen notice that we have new traffic lights along 210. They've improved the lighting with new LED lights. And so we are making some progress along Maryland 210. It used to be a, you know, a sleepy, I hear people say that it used to be a sleepy roadway. I think uh the one lane or two lanes going towards Deuce DC and two lanes going south. Well, now it's a very busy roadway, well traveled, traffic backs up pretty extensively once you get to that Palmer intersection. So we want to make sure that uh all the funds continue to go to the improvement of Maryland 210 so that we can have a safer Maryland 210. That concludes the episode today on Maryland 210, and hopefully, we will have a safer roadway with your support. So please contact your uh legislators as well as the legislators on the House Environment and Transportation Committee. They will be hearing the bill very soon, and we want that to come out favorably and hit the House floor with a favorable vote as well. So thanks for tuning in. We appreciate you. Let's move beyond the ballot box and take action on Maryland 210. Thanks for joining me today on this episode of All Politics is Local, the Maryland edition, where we hope to inspire and activate a new generation of informed voters to move beyond the ballot box and take action. Remember, all politics is local.