{"id":121976922,"date":"2008-11-12T18:28:42","date_gmt":"2008-11-12T18:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=121976922"},"modified":"2008-11-12T18:28:42","modified_gmt":"2008-11-12T18:28:42","slug":"new-foundation-seeks-to-cut-maryland-traffic-deaths-in-half","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=121976922","title":{"rendered":"New foundation seeks to cut Maryland traffic deaths in half"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Len Lazarick Examiner Staff Writer 10\/31\/08
\nCharles Stoecker, a Baltimore County farmer who founded the Baltimore City Farmers Market, was killed this past year when a teen driver who was speeding and texting on a cell phone struck the car he was driving.
\nA pair of his shoes was among the 615 empty pairs lined up for the announcement of the new Maryland Highway Safety Foundation. Each set of footwear came from a victim killed in road accidents this past year
\nMaryland officials announced a new driver safety initiative Thursday amid a pair of shoes from every state resident killed on the roads last year.
\nThe new foundation is hoping to \u201cchange the culture\u201d of Maryland drivers, David Nevins, a public relations executive and co-chairman of the new foundation said, during a news conference in Annapolis.
\nMost Marylanders don\u2019t own guns, collect knives or routinely handle other deadly weapons, \u201cexcept when we get behind the wheel of a car,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cOur problem is cultural and behavioral,\u201d said foundation Co-Chairman Fred Mirmiran.
\nMirmiran, president of Johnson Mirmiran & Thompson, an engineering consulting firm, had pushed the idea of the foundation on the 100th anniversary of the State Highway Administration.
\n\u201cWe want to cut that [615 number] in half,\u201d he said.
\nOne solution is having at least 100 Maryland businesses, representing a total of at least 100,000 employees, to take a pledge to encourage safer driving by their workers.
\nMirmiran said that would include mandating:
\n\u00bb Not serving alcohol at corporate events;
\n\u00bb No texting while driving and no speeding;
\n\u00bb Driver training for any employee who gets a speeding ticket on the job.
\nMaryland traffic deaths are down again this year, as they were last year, and the state ranks 42nd in the country in terms of fatalities, said Gov. Martin O\u2019Malley, but \u201clet\u2019s chase after that No. 50 ranking.\u201d
\nJudge Katie O\u2019Malley, the governor\u2019s wife, is honorary chairwoman of the new foundation.
\n[While traffic fatalities may be down, pedestrian fatalities are up, Maryland now ranks the 4th worst state (up from #8 last year) with the highest percentage of pedestrian fatalities.]
\n
\nArticle: https:\/\/www.baltimoreexaminer.com\/local\/New_foundation_seeks_to_cut_Maryland_traffic_deaths_in_half.html<\/a>
\nPersons Killed, by STATE and Person Type – State : USA, Year : 2007: https:\/\/www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov\/States\/StatesCrashesAndAllVictims.aspx<\/a>oldId.20081112182842681<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Len Lazarick Examiner Staff Writer 10\/31\/08 Charles Stoecker, a Baltimore County farmer who founded the Baltimore City Farmers Market, was killed this past year when a teen driver who was speeding and texting on a cell phone struck the car he was driving. A pair of his shoes was among the 615 empty pairs … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “New foundation seeks to cut Maryland traffic deaths in half”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121976922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biking-in-maryland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121976922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=121976922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121976922\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=121976922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=121976922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=121976922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}