State's streak of days without highway deaths ends
In a grim sort of way, things are getting back to normal in Maryland.
After a remarkable stretch of about a week without a traffic fatality on Maryland roads, two men died in separate crashes overnight in Rockville and Hagerstown.
Neither the State Police nor the State Highway Administration knew exactly when the last previous highway death occurred in Maryland. It is possible that the state hit the one-week mark before the 8 p.m. Thursday fatal crash in Rockville broke a streak that authorities attributed to reduced driving during the twin storms that began a week ago Friday evening, the slower speeds driven by those who were on the roads and an unusual amount of careful driving for a state in which 10-12 people die on the roads in a typical week.
In the Rockville crash, a 62-year-old man died in the collision of a 2004 Chevy Silverado and a 1995 Ford Explorer, according to State Police spokesman Greg Shipley. Few other details were available.
The Hagerstown crash took place Friday morning about 4 a.m. when the driver of a 2001 Chevrolet Impala crashed into a guardrail at high speed on Interstate 81 near Halfway Boulevard and overturned, according to the Hagerstown Herald-Mail. A passenger in the car, Jeremy D. Hollins of New York, was ejected through the rear window and pronounced dead at the scene. Other occupants of the vehicle were injured.
The crash is under investigation by the state police. Shipley said the preliminary indication is that drugs or alcohol might have been involved.
