Drivers

Many drivers got stuck on their way home from work during Wednesday's snowstorm, and a few of them called The Sun to talk about it. Here are some of their stories: 'At least I'm not stuck … in a ditch' Alexis Rea left downtown about 5 p.m. Wednesday and pulled onto Interstate 83, thinking the highway would be a better choice during the storm because she did not know how the secondary roads were holding up. She wanted to...

Maryland drivers are expected to awake today to a road network that has significantly improved since the weekend's enormous snowfall, but they will still face dangerous conditions. The biggest challenge for many motorists will be reaching main roads. In many cases secondary roads might not be reached by snowplows for several days - and road crews could face a new round of snowfall Tuesday. Transportation services from roads to rails to planes slowly began the crawl back to normal Sunday.

The outcome of Sunday's races could come down to how the drivers negotiate the chicane that officials initially removed after last year's inaugural event, then decided to put back late Friday night. The Pratt Street chicane is designed to slow drivers down as they barrel over the light rail tracks, but several drivers failed to properly make it around the barrier Saturday and found themselves - and their cars - going in many different directions. "If you're following another car into that chicane, you're going to be blinded where the curb is," three-time Indianapolis 500 champion Dario Franchitti said.

If drivers come from the direction of All Saints Rd / Route 216 in Howard County toward Main Street Laurel (in Prince George's County), the speed limits are very visibly posted, alerting drivers to decreases from 45 mph to 40 mph and finally to 25 mph. The first notice for the 25 mph limit is right as you pass the Settlers Landing sign, on the right side of the road prior to crossing over the bridge toward the Main Street intersection. Yes, the camera is just a few feet past the intersection, in a school zone, hence the 25 mph. Speeding is breaking the law and has consequences.

There are several tipoffs that a driver might be drunk: swerving, traveling the wrong way on a street, pulling out of a bar late at night. And a Prince George's County lawmaker wants to add one more. He says the state should replace license plates of repeat drunken drivers with bright yellow tags that read "DUI." "Displaying the special license plates will give people some understanding of who they are sharing the roadways with," Marvin E. Holmes Jr., a Democrat, said at a hearing on his bill Thursday.

T he Maryland State Police opened up its forensics laboratory in Pikesville last week to show off its latest pride and joy - a spanking-new facility devoted entirely to analyzing blood samples from drivers who are suspected of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of drugs other than alcohol. Police and prosecutors have long struggled with a lack of in-state resources for testing such samples. They have had to send the samples to out-of-state contract labs, which charge heavy fees and have difficulty springing staff members to provide testimony in Maryland trials.

Officer William Kinsey had no sooner pointed his unmarked Chevy Tahoe north on Interstate 95 when he spotted the newest scofflaw. "There's a guy talking right there," he said. The guy was behind the wheel of a brown Ford pickup truck speeding along in the fast lane of the highway near Moravia Road. He was chatting away on a cell phone pressed to his ear, an activity that on Oct. 1 became a crime in Maryland. But it's not a crime for which Kinsey, a veteran with the Maryland Transportation Authority Police, can flip on his flashing lights and force the driver to pull over.

A truck overturned in an accident involving an Anne Arundel County police vehicle on southbound Interstate 97 near Route 100 on Saturday sent both drivers to the hospital, officials said. No injuries were listed in the accident report, but the driver of the truck was taken to Baltimore Washington Medical Center and the police officer to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center as a precautionary measure, county police Lt. Glenn Shanahan said. The accident, which is under investigation, blocked several lanes of traffic for about an hour until 4 p.m., officials said.

If you're driving Memorial Day weekend, be warned: More Maryland State Police will be on the highways this holiday weekend, aiming to arrest speeders and aggressive drivers -- those motorists following too closely, constantly switching lanes or merging into traffic without yielding.The reasoning for the aggressive approach? Fatal accidents in Maryland have risen nearly 35 percent this year compared to the same time last year.As of Sunday, 270 people have died on Maryland roads this year, up from 203 for the same period last year, Mike McKelvin, a state police spokesman.

I LISTEN to all these taxicab experts, not one of whom drives a cab, and I laugh. I'm just a cabbie, not a taxicab expert, but I have a few ideas of my own on how we can improve cab service in Baltimore. Here they are:First, I'd charge at least $2 every time I responded to a call less than 30 minutes old and didn't get a paying fare for my trouble. Or, if I couldn't collect, I'd want the company to put that address in its computer so the next driver could get the money. And if the people weren't there a second time, I wouldn't send them any more cabs until they paid up. This would eliminate all problems with radio call service, because radio calls would become profitable for the drivers.