Posted on 03/07/2008 6:55:54 AM PST by sickoflibs
The driver of the car that struck and killed a police officer on a Howard County highway last year was traveling 16 mph over the speed limit at the time of the accident and swerved at the last moment.
Police Chief William J. McMahon said Grissom was traveling 71 mph in the 2007 Nissan Sentra that hit Cpl. Scott Wheeler that June afternoon. The speed limit at the site of the accident - Route 32 near Interstate 95 - is 55 mph.
In a written statement, Wheeler's widow, Tracy, said: "We are disappointed that the grand jury chose not to indict the driver who struck Scott on manslaughter charges. While we knew this was possible, it is difficult to accept. But with the support of our extended family in the Police Department, we will do our best to move forward."
Wheeler was a six-year veteran of the department and the first Howard County officer to die in the line of duty in almost 50 years. He was part of a three-officer "stop team" that used a long-range laser to catch speeders, stepping out into the road to direct them to the shoulder.
Other police agencies in Maryland, including the state police, also stopped using the "step-out" method on high-speed roadways.
Although the department will cease the method for safety reasons, McMahon said he knows it works. The number of speeding citations written on the roadways where the method was used has decreased 40 percent to 50 percent since it was suspended
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
Maryland gives drivers licenses to illegals along with tax-payer benefits and them pumps us for more and more money.
Sorry, but that's just idiotic. Just about Darwin Award-type behavior. It sounds like the grand jury made the right decision. 71 MPH in a 55 zone is pretty fast, but I don't think it rises to the level of reckless. Reckless is jumping out in front of a car on the highway.
“It is insane to jump in front of a car doing 70 in a 55 mph road (65 is average speed on this road, not 55.)”
Though that doesn’t excuse a driver from responsibility, it is a very dangerous practice by the troopers. I live outside of Ocean City and travel Rt 50 quite a bit. As you can imagine, in the summer the troopers are quite busy pulling people over. The danger comes in when they step out in the middle of a busy road and point to a driver to pull over...problem is there are usually at least 2 cars he/she might be point out so there’s confusion. Lot of braking, near misses, possible rear end collisions...it’s just not a safe way to operate.
The 55 was probably deliberately set low to encourage speeding and increase traffic ticket revenue.
If I remember correctly, a car going 60 mph travels 88 feet per second. A car going 71 probably goes around a hundred feet per second. That doesn’t leave much room for error......
It is insane to jump in front of a car doing 70 in a 55 mph road (65 is average speed on this road, not 55.)
*******
Yes, the step-out method assumes that the driver can stop before he hits the officer!!! Which means that the driver is not driving too fast!!!
The 3-man teams always deployed on a long straight stretch of not heavily travelled roadway, where they knew that drivers would be taking advantage of -— a long straight stretch of not heavily travelled roadway!
I am sorry that this officer died, but apparently, traffic enforcement decision makers could not fortell that this was bound to happen.
Suicidally stupid behavior, all in the name of revenue enhancement.
ping
I was pulled over in this very fashion several years ago on Route 17 in NY. I was the first of about a dozen cars pulled over at the same time, and it was very startling to suddenly see a human standing in the middle of the highway. I remember thinking at the time how easliy I could have run him over!
On the up side, I was greeted by the officer with a “We got the wrong red 4-door. Have a good day, ma’am.” Whew!
“The 55 was probably deliberately set low to encourage speeding and increase traffic ticket revenue.”
Yup. This chunk or road drives easily at 65+ mph. I've driven through there many times.
sitetest
Maryland insanity ping!
The friday before Memorial Day last year I ended up getting off early. Cruising down a four-lane interstate that was crowded, but flowing nicely and safely at 5-10 over the speed limit.
Motorcycle cop is hiding behind a bridge support with a laser.
As he starts pulling towards the road, of course panic sets in. Brake lights everywhere, traffic suddenly bunched together as everyone’s safety margins are suddenly squeezed by the traffic in front slowing down while traffic in back hasn’t seen the cop or brake lights yet.
His buddy is a couple thousand feet up the road with a vehicle pulled over on the narrow median between a concrete berm and the passing lane - also on a motorcyle with their tiny little flashing light. There’s hardly room to walk around the car he has pulled over.
In Ohio, you have to either slow down radically or pull out of the lane next to the officer who has pulled over a vehicle.
So now that four lanes of chaotic traffic caused by officer #1 has to squeeze into three lanes because of officer #2. More brake lights, sudden lane changes, traffic is now a gigantic gridlocked mess with no margin for safety. A perfectly safe driving environment on a sunny dry day is turned into a potential catastrophe waiting to happen so two “unsafe” motorists could be detained and ticketed.
What was more dangerous - the two motorists speeding along with the other couple hundred, or interestate traffic suddenly being packed into a spooked closely packed herd?
I’d say the latter, but I guess that’s why I’m not a police officer.
The police dept. supervisor responsible for this idiotic policy needs to own-up to responsibility for the officer's death.
Look for the procedures to change.
I was going through an urban school zone (four east bound lanes separated in pairs by a large planting strip with trees), in the lanes farthest from the school a couple years ago. I am normally really good at keeping it at 20 in a school zone but somehow it didn’t connect in my brain that it was a school zone.
I was not alone because they were pulling over cars as fast as they could get a radar reading. There were two “spotters” on foot hiding behind the trees and a bunch of cops in the parking lot a half a block away giving tickets based on the speed written on a yellow sticky they stuck to the top of your car by the spotter.
The normal limit is 30 and I was doing about 40. A cop literally jumped out from behind a tree right in front of me. It almost caused an accident. Both my wife’s and my initial impression was that it was a car-jacker with a gun (wearing all black with a radar gun) and I almost ran him down. But then I almost hit another car swerving to avoid him.
Meanwhile, the cop that gave me the ticket in the parking lot was a friend. I got a ticket for 25 in a school zone.
Funny thing is, I had actually mentioned to my wife as we entered the school zone (high school) that there were a lot of kids horsing around very close to the road and a missed step could get one of them killed. It didn’t even click that it was a school zone.
Doh!
>>71 MPH in a 55 zone is pretty fast, but I don’t think it rises to the level of reckless.<<
Honestly, it isn’t that fast. Heck, on my way to work today the FLOW of traffic on my main route was just under 60. The speed limit is 30. It felt perfectly safe.
We’ve all been on roads that have unreasonably low speed limits. Meanwhile, I just got back from Kentucky where I was on a road with a 50mph limit and it felt dangerous doing 5o around some of the corners.
Oh man. Don’t get me started!
I dunno. These sort of things rarely have simple solutions.
While tragic, this was a tragic accident, plain and simple. I have to agree with the jury on this one. It is pretty clear that the driver did not go out of his way to harm this officer. Manslaughter charges are way out of line in this case.
I am sorry for the loss, though.
>>Though that doesn’t excuse a driver from responsibility<<
It does in my book.
I hit a pedestrian about two years ago. For all I know he is a quadraplegic. I have never had a single pang of guilt. It was entirely his fault. I didn’t even have time to hit the brakes. It was exactly like hitting a squirrel that came out of nowhere.
When someone jumps out in front of a moving car, they take their own life in their hands. They, and they alone are the responsible party.
Kash Register Kops
If the Florida highway patrol started jumping out in front of cars on I-75 here, the blue hairs who drive on our roads would be mowing them down daily. In fact they passed a State law here that you have to move to the outside lane when passing a FHP car parked by the side of the road or you can be ticketed with a large fine.
And to take it a step further. If I had been the one to hit the officer, I would put ALL responsibility on the officer - even if I were “speeding”. Illegal and unsafe are two different things. I am old enough to remember driving on roads where the speed limit was dropped from 70 to 55, and it wasn’t for safety - but 70 did become “illegal”. And the laws are designed for the fresh off the boat DWA, or “blue hair looking through the steering wheel” anyway.
((( I live outside of Ocean City and travel Rt 50 quite a bit. )))
Howdy neighbor. I’m in Centreville, MD (drive to DC every day on 50)
Up in Seattle, the drivers got together and drove 55 across the lanes and the backup was so big that they had to stop enforcement.
MD has had the traps in the same places on 50 for at least 50 years..no surprises there.
>>It may have worked years ago, but now there are too many cars, going too fast, and too many distractions.<<
Yup. That is why I am a more nervous bicycle commuter. I’m concerned I could be hit by a kid text-messaging his friends.
It’s always 2:15 a.m. on the roads these days.
“Howdy neighbor. I’m in Centreville, MD (drive to DC every day on 50)”
Howdy! Ugh, I feel for you. I drive from Ocean Pines to Salisbury every day....it’s an effort to stay awake. ;)
>>Kash Register Kops<<
Expect to see a LOT more of this as cash strapped municipalities deal with reduced tax revenue. It is already happening in the Seattle suburbs where I have lived since the mid-1960’s. Spring is always bad, but this year it is ridiculous. Even during rush hour (which is normally pretty much taboo) there are radar traps all over the place!
That raises an interesting point. If everybody obeyed every traffic law, no more tickets and no more revenue. What would they do then? Make the laws even stricter?
“State law here that you have to move to the outside lane when passing a FHP car parked by the side of the road...”
I noticed on my drive from Kentucky to Chicago last week that a lot of people were doing that. It is not a “Washington state” thing to do and I didn’t get it. Now I do.
Indeed, if the whole rationale for ticketing the drivers is to make the roads safe, the officers in your scenario were making things far more dangerous than a flow of traffic operating smoothly albeit faster than the posted limit.
They do this in Mass, too. I was speeding on 95 and I noticed an officer on the side of the road and slowed down in time but he stepped out after I passed to direct the car behind me to the side.
It seems awfully dangerous and they should not put their officers in such a precarious position just for catching speeders.
>>Indeed, if the whole rationale for ticketing the drivers is to make the roads safe, the officers in your scenario were making things far more dangerous than a flow of traffic operating smoothly albeit faster than the posted limit.<<
Think how great camera speed enforcement will be (or better yet, OBD III speed and seat-belt enforcement). No backups, just a ticket in the mail. And with OBD III even if the flow is 11 mph over, they can send EVERY SINGLE CAR IN THE FLOW a ticket!
That’ll slow the b@ast@rds down!
/s
I wonder who thought this was a good idea? How many people would jump out in the road in the path of a car going 70 mph? If my employer told me to do that, I’d be looking for another job.
True, anyone that does that is a Darwin candidate. Besides if the driver is an illegal they tell them to have a nice day.
And they can debit your bank account before you even get home.
Cops stand along and step inside the left lane (HOV) on I-66 in decent weather to stop HOV violators. Usually happens just after the Beltway and Nutley St. If they aren’t there, I can get to rt 28 in 17-22 minutes from the Beltway. Otherwise, it’s usually a mess. Bad enough when there are accidents but the cops just make things worse standing in the median or left lane.
I have been hearing for months that there was going to be a multi-state ticket blitz starting on March 1, 2008, and that the police were going to try to get traffic flowing more or less at the posted speed limit.
I drive the Garden State Parkway every day, and have for 20 years. The only time my speedo reads 55 mph is at the instantaneous moment that I am accelerating or decelerating through that speed. Every single car on the road, without exception, is busting the limit by 10 mph, at least, and this is a big 5-lane in each direction highway.
If they are going to get that traffic stream down to the double-nickel, they are going to have to write a heck of a lot of tickets.
Agreed. If you're going to play chicken with an automobile, you ought to at least be in one yourself.
Can you imagine an enforcement system so efficient that every time you went even five over you would get sent a $10 ticket.
Two things would happen:
1. I’d go broke in six months.
2. Half of the cause of that would be the bills from my shrink for treating my neurosis from feeling I am always being followed by a motorcycle cop - just WAITING for me to do something wrong and write a ticket.
I dont know if you live in MD but now that Democrats took over the governorship by lying abour electricity rates they are speeding into this new revenue method.
Dumb method to pull drivers over. About a couple of years ago, I got caught in an airplane trap in Missouri. For how much over ? 10 over the limit (80/70). At least when I got stopped, it was a “chase car” and not some officer coming out into the road while I am cooking at 80 mph.
I’m in a Seattle suburb.
On a side note, one guy in my neighborhood drives a green subaru with a vanity plate. It says “FREEPER”. I would like to stop him some time and find out who he is.
They know it works because the number of citations has decreased? It sounds like a stupid idea to step out in traffic, the kind of thing they teach 5 year olds not to do. Why not just pull up behind speeders with flashing red and blue lights and pull them over?
the so called step out method sounds like a good way to get run over. I can’t imagine anyone would consider tis a good procedure
RE : “ the backup was so big that they had to stop enforcement.”
It doesnt work here in MD. Our ex-democrat Howard county executive Jim Robey promoted massive overdevelopment turning the county main roads into parking lots. He even made a comment that widening those roads wont help because more drivers will just appear to fill the new lanes. Now he is in the MD state Senate is pushing for speeding cameras on side roads. Why? He forced the traffic onto those roads but packing the main roads, now he can take more revenue to spend from the problem HE caused. But Maryland voters never get it. They love seeing taxes go up and government run their lives. No cause and effect here.
Drugs/Guns/Money.
If you are a small municipality, you can do all right writing tickets, but the big money is in seizures.
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