Accident Scene

A Severna Park man, returning home from a golf game with Toronto Blue Jays players yesterday morning, veered off Montgomery Road and slammed into an Ellicott City home, police said.Officials said Greg Fudge, 39, of the 100 block of Old Country Road was driving his Isuzu Trooper east when he lost control and swerved across the yellow line about 10 a.m.Fudge, who escaped serious injury, plowed through two fences, NTC ran over several bushes and crushed a small oak tree before hitting the corner of the two-story home, police said.

A 6-year-old boy remained in critical condition yesterday after he was struck by a taxicab in a hit-and-run accident as he ran across Monument Street with his grandfather, authorities said.Police said Osbie Stephenson of the 100 block of N. Chapel St. was running across the 2200 block of E. Monument St. near Collington Avenue when he was hit by an eastbound Royal cab about 10 p.m. Friday.The driver had swerved, police said, to avoid hitting the grandfather, identified by police as Osbie Willey.

A state trooper died yesterday after a traffic accident on Baltimore-Washington Parkway in Prince George's County, state police said.The accident occurred as Trooper Raymond G. Armstead Jr., 27, who was assigned to the Forestville Barracks, drove north on the parkway about 12: 30 p.m. Several people clustered at a minor traffic accident near Powder Mill Road flagged him down, and Armstead began to pull over.Armstead looked toward the people on the shoulder, said Col. David B. Mitchell, superintendent of the agency, and didn't see that traffic was stopped ahead.

An Anne Arundel County circuit judge sentenced a hit-and-run driver to two years' probation yesterday, giving the Laurel woman a chance at the probation-before-judgment sentence he had denied."

A pedestrian was killed and a motorist was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol Friday night after a hit-and-run accident on Southwestern Boulevard in Arbutus, Baltimore County police said.Jensen Peter Sorensen, 40, of the 4700 block of Belwood Green in Arbutus was struck by a vehicle in the northbound lane of Southwestern Boulevard about 9: 45 p.m. as he was crossing the street near Leeds Avenue, police said.Police said Brian Daley, 38, of the 8500 block of Timberland Circle in Ellicott City was arrested shortly after an abandoned vehicle was found near the accident scene.

An Anne Arundel County circuit judge, distressed by a driver's decision not to return to the scene of a fatal pedestrian accident to see what her van had just hit, refused yesterday to go along with a defense request for a sentence that could lead to erasing the criminal conviction."

A 28-year-old New Jersey man was killed yesterday morning when a Virginia man's vehicle struck him at a busy intersection two blocks from the Boardwalk. Police said alcohol and speed contributed to the accident.Michael Ketcham of Wall, N.J., was crossing Philadelphia Avenue at Talbot Street with his brother at 2: 38 a.m. when a speeding southbound Chevrolet Blazer struck him, police said. The impact threw Ketcham more than 300 feet in the air, police said. He died at the scene.Robert Joseph Bartlett, 27, of Fairfax, Va., who is suspected of driving the Blazer, was captured after apparently trying to hide in the water under a pier six blocks from the accident scene, police said.

THE LAST TIME AROUND, challengers for two Howard County Circuit judgeships argued that experience was the most important quality in determining who belongs on the bench. But several legal experts said otherwise. More important, experts said, is the ability to make good decisions, something that may or may not come with time.For all their experience in legal matters, the challengers, District Judge Lenore R. Gelfman and attorney Jonathan Scott Smith, made an unwise decision on the morning of Sept.

The two challengers in Howard County's Circuit Court judicial race, whose roadside sign-waving has set new standards of aggressiveness for such campaigns, may have caused a minor fender-bender just outside Columbia -- and then quickly left the scene.The incident has touched off a new feud in the bitter county judges' race just as the four candidates are gearing up for a final face-off in the fall election.The drivers of the cars involved in the Sept. 5 accident vary in the blame they assign to the two sign-waving candidates, District Judge Lenore R. Gelfman and attorney Jonathan Scott Smith.

A car carrying six people slammed into a tree yesterday morning on a Towson residential street, killing an adult and a child and sending four other people to area hospitals, Baltimore County police said.nTC The accident happened shortly after 8 a.m., as a Ford Thunderbird was going down a hill south on Hillen Road approaching heavily traveled Goucher Boulevard, near Calvert Hall College. The car veered off the right side of the road, clipped bushes and crashed head-on into a birch tree.None of the victims has been identified.