Vehicles

A fuel tanker veered off an overpass and plunged onto Interstate 95 in Howard County yesterday afternoon, killing at least four people, triggering huge explosions and towering flames, and shutting down the East Coast's main highway into the night. The tanker was curling around the overpass on southbound Interstate 895 about 2:45 p.m. when it jackknifed, flipped down an embankment and landed in the northbound I-95 lanes, police and witnesses said. Unable to stop in time, four northbound vehicles - police described them as a tractor-trailer, another large truck, a pickup truck and a car - crashed into the tanker.

Carroll County transportation officials have found after examining vehicle maintenance records that seven county-owned vehicles and other pieces of equipment were overdue for state-required inspection. The county's Bureau of Fleet Management and Warehouse Operations recently completed its review of the records after the bureau was charged last month with violating a state law requiring annual inspections and repairs of large trucks and equipment. County officials blamed confusing recordkeeping that led an inspector from the state police's Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Section to believe that county-owned vehicles were not being inspected.

Last week's recall of 8.7 million Ford Motor Co. vehicles could cost the automaker $200 million to $300 million, but it could give other businesses an unexpected boost -- namely, Ford's local dealers.That's because the automaker will pay dealers their standard labor rate for the half-hour repair that needs to be made on a wide variety of 1988-1992 models (and a few 1993s), dealers and the company said. And, if handled correctly, the recall can even be a marketing tool of a sort."Most customers whose cars are recalled, if the dealer provides prompt service and everything goes as it should, come out feeling better or at least as good about the company and the dealer," said Ford spokesman Jon F. Harmon, adding that Ford conducted focus-group research on this point after past recalls.

FINZEL - From the driver's seat of his Dodge Caravan, Greg Frank could see only the tail end of the tractor-trailer inches in front of him and the red Chevy hard against his door. But he could hear the chaos erupting all around him. "You couldn't see it, just hear it: boom, boom, boom," said Frank, 45, who was driving his family to a wedding in Pittsburgh on Friday when they were caught in the middle of what state police are calling the worst crash in Maryland in the past 30 years. "It sounded surreal.

A Senate committee decided yesterday to go along with the House of Delegates' version of a transportation revenue bill, leaving Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. well short of his goal of raising $300 million a year for roads and mass transit projects. Sen. Ulysses Currie, chairman of the Budget and Taxation Committee, said he would bring a $165.5 million-a-year bill - relying primarily on an increase in vehicle registration fees - to the Senate floor without changes. The committee approved his plan unanimously, a sign the full Senate is likely to go along with a strategy to keep the transportation bill from becoming entangled with other issues in the waning days of a contentious legislative session.

It's billed as one of the quirkiest, cutting-edge cross-country competitions in history: a pack of souped-up racers galloping through 250 miles of desert between California and Las Vegas for a million in cash. The catch: Computers will be at the controls. The Grand Challenge is part Baja 500, part BattleBots. Since organizers began accepting signups last month, the race has attracted everyone from former NASA engineers to garage monkeys like Chris Pedersen, a former stock car racer who boasts that his team's "strong suit is low tech.

A school bus carrying children to the National Aquarium was hit by a van and overturned along the Baltimore-Washington Parkway yesterday morning in a four-vehicle accident that left them briefly trapped, screaming and crying for their mothers. But tragedy was averted. Though more than 20 people were injured, none died. By the end of the day, all the children, who were from a Washington day camp, had been sent home from area hospitals, authorities said. Among the injured were a convict serving a life sentence for murder and the two correctional officers who had been driving him to a medical appointment, and the most seriously hurt - a worker who was struck by one of the vehicles as she sprayed pesticide along the parkway.

Karyn Wilmer's car doesn't look like much, with faded paint and a plastic sheet covering the leaky sunroof. But the humble, dark green 1998 Honda Accord has changed her life since a local nonprofit put her behind the wheel. The 24-year-old single mother received the low-cost used car from Halethorpe-based Vehicles for Change, allowing her to reach a job she loves and freeing her from dependence on bus service provided by the Maryland Transit Administration. "It was almost a miracle for me," Wilmer said of the car she received in February.

As of 8 a.m., Maryland Route 27 in Carroll County remains shut down in both directions at Twin Arch Road due to an accident involving two vehicles. Maryland Route 295 southbound is reopen after briefly being closed early Monday morning due to an accident involving two vehicles at the exit to the National Security Agency in Anne Arundel County.

DETROIT -- Laurel Mathews pampered the Jeep Cherokee she bought barely used from a dealer in 2003 - stringent maintenance, wax-and-polish cleanings, oil changes every 2,000 miles. Given the meticulous care - and the SUV's $15,000-plus price tag - the Upstate New Yorker was more than dismayed when she tried to sell her Jeep two years later. "I couldn't get more than $5,000," she said. "It was in perfect condition. That was my baby. I was horrified." Mathews' experience is shared by many in the nation's car-buying public and has become a big problem for Detroit's automakers.