Truck

Officers pulled a man from a burning truck, moments before the entire vehicle was engulfed in flames, Baltimore County police said. The truck had crashed into a light pole at North Point Road and Bethlehem Boulevard, and the driver, who has not been identified, was trapped inside the burning vehicle, police said. Three officers responded at 2:20 a.m. Saturday and worked to free him from the vehicle. The driver was flown to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he is being treated, according to police.

When Keith Short began delivering packages for UPS in Glen Burnie 23 years ago, he used bulky pads of paper to track parcels and pens that froze in the cold. Today, Short scans packages on and off his truck with a handheld computer that tells him what to deliver where and when, and can even direct him turn-by-turn. "The whole route is in here," said Short of his handheld "DIAD" computer — an abbreviation for for Delivery Information Acquisition Device. The handhelds — now in the fifth generation — have made UPS drivers' jobs more efficient, especially during the peak holiday season when UPS picks up and drops off millions of packages each day. The ideas for improving the technology percolate in the offices of UPS' Information Services Group in Timonium.

Update, Dec. 7: This event has been canceled, due to inclement weather. Baltimore's food truck rally returns to McHenry Row on Dec. 7 for a special Christmas event, featuring the lighting of the McHenry Row Christmas tree. The event will include live music, photos with Santa Claus with pets and children. Beer and wine will be sold -- guests can purchase a $15 unlimited drinks wristband. The McHenry Row Christmas tree lighting and food truck rally will be held from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Dec. 7 at 1514 Key Highway.

Some were first-timers, others veterans. Under Baltimore's Washington Monument Thursday night, thousands gathered for carols, food truck carryout and a bit of light-hearted - if jam-packed - holiday camaraderie. At the 41st annual lighting of the monument, another winter season in Charm City was launched - kids and teens, young adults and older couples all looking skyward as the strings of lights were turned on, lasers shot patterns across Mount Vernon's trees and a finale of fireworks burst into the air, all to the accompaniment of holiday musical classics.

City transportation officials said Thursday they are investigating a second speed camera on West Cold Spring Lane in North Baltimore after more questions were raised about whether it has been issuing inaccurate tickets to motorists. The city and its contractor acknowledged earlier this month faulty speed readings of trucks on the stretch of road near Poly-Western High after The Baltimore Sun found erroneous tickets issued by an eastbound camera there. Thursday's comments came after The Sun provided the city with new evidence showing a westbound camera had wrongly ticketed a car that wasn't speeding.

A 51-year-old Edgewater woman remains in critical condition, after she ran into the road Wednesday and was struck by a pickup truck. Susan Blanchard Harris is being treated at University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center. Pedestrian error is the primary cause of the accident that occurred at 6:19 p.m. near the intersection of East Central Avenue and West Shore Road in Edgewater, police said. A Ford F-150 truck traveling east in the far right lane of East Central Avenue, within posted speed limits, could not avoid hitting the victim, police said.

Domino Sugar is donating 30,200 pounds of its products to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey to help victims of the massive storm called Sandy, the company announced Monday. Trucks carrying the Domino products - including brown, powdered and granulated sugars, coffee service canisters and powdered drink mixes - left Baltimore's Inner Harbor refinery Monday for storm-ravaged New Jersey. "For our company, Hurricane Sandy hit home," said Stu FitzGibbon, the Baltimore refinery's manager, in a statement.

Turns out the wheels of government move faster than you might think. Among the 2.5 million speed camera violations issued in the last three years to vehicles in and around Baltimore, thousands were mailed to the same government that issued the tickets. More than 8,000 of the $40 automated speed camera tickets have been issued to vehicles owned by the state, Baltimore City and Baltimore County since 2009, according to a Baltimore Sun analysis of citation records. A range of city-owned vehicles have been snapped by the speed cameras in area school zones or highway work zones.

The tractor-trailer hit 70 mph as it passed the Poly-Western high school campus on Cold Spring Lane, barreling down a turn lane at twice the legal speed limit. Or so the $40 citation claimed. Just before Falls Road, a pole-mounted speed camera clocked the truck with radar and snapped some pictures. A ticket soon went out in the mail. On paper it seemed like just the kind of blatant, dangerous school-zone speeding violation that the ubiquitous enforcement cameras are designed to catch and deter.

Two people were killed on Route 75 in Frederick on Monday afternoon when a tractor trailer loaded with oranges overturned and collided with the pickup truck they were riding in, according to Maryland State Police. Three people were also injured, one of them critically. The deceased victims are identified as Hector N.C. Henriquez, 46, of Gaithersburg, Md., and Jose R. Diaz, 54, of Derwood, Md. Henriquez was the driver of a Ford F-450 truck. Diaz was a passenger in that truck and was sitting in the left rear seat.