SPARROWS POINT, Md. — The theme for this year’s National Work Zone Awareness Week is captured in the artwork of six-year-old Elliana Camela of Annapolis.
“Respect the zone… so we all get home,” she told us after nervously consulting with her mother at her side.
‘Respecting the zone’ should be easy enough with enhanced signage and hefty new tiers of fines for speeding motorists in response to the six-fatal beltway crash two years ago, but Lieutenant Governor Aruna Miller says that’s not the case.
“Just in the first two months of this year since the tiered system took effect, more than 48 thousand citations were issued for speeding in Maryland work zones,” said Miller, “and more than half, 24,785 citations were issued while workers were actively present.”
23 of those motorists received the maximum fines of a thousand dollars a piece.
The challenge protecting Maryland's highway workers
The lieutenant governor says that means those drivers were traveling in excess of 40 miles per hour over the speed limit and two of them drove in excess of 130 miles per hour.
That’s even faster than the two vehicles, which caused the state’s deadliest work zone crash on I-695, begging the question, why?
“The reality is we live in a culture where people watch 10 Fast & Furious movies,” said Maryland State Highway Administrator Will Pines, “We need to stop that.”
And they say it’s never too early to reach Marylanders with that message.
“What are you hoping for?” we asked Elliana as the young artist stood in front of the safety poster she had designed.
“So people will drive safe,” she responded.
