DATE: Wednesday, September 3, 1997          TAG: 9709030010

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   54 lines

TRAFFIC DEATH TOLL IS MOUNTING NEW SAFETY RULES NEEDED FOR THE CHESAPEAKE BAY BRIDGE-TUNNEL.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel is no longer an accident waiting to happen.

It happened.

A tragic Labor Day weekend accident on the span left five people dead. Two of the victims were young children.

Police reports indicate that the driver of the compact car that crashed into the water was attempting to pass other southbound cars at the time of the accident. The driver reportedly clipped a car on her side of the road and hit another vehicle in the opposite lane before being catapulted over the guardrail and into the water.

The new second span will eventually end hazardous two-way traffic on the above-ground segments of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. In the meantime, how many people must die before the authorities declare the 17-mile span a no-passing zone?

Six days before this fatal accident, the Bridge-Tunnel was the site of another head-on collision. That accident snarled weekend traffic for more than three hours.

A month earlier there was another.

In June, a woman died after a head-on collision with a tractor trailer.

Just last week we urged officials to ban passing on the Bridge-Tunnel. We worried that to ignore such advice would mean more carnage on the bay.

We had no way of knowing that the fatalities would come so soon and the death toll would be so high.

Several physical characteristics of the Bridge-Tunnel make it more dangerous than most: the flat, almost straight nature of the roadway invites drivers to speed. The two-way traffic with no shoulders on the sides of the road - and thus no margin for error - is a recipe for disaster. Finally, because the Bridge-Tunnel slices through one of the most breathtaking confluences of bay and ocean, drivers are tempted to take their eyes from the road to glance at the magnificent scenery.

In addition to outlawing the practice of passing on the bridges, speed limits shoul be dropped from 55 m.p.h. to perhaps 40. Some have suggested an innovative way of enforcing lower speed limits on the Bridge-Tunnel: punching toll receipts with the time of arrival on the span so that when exiting an official could glance at the ticket and immediately calculate if the driver had exceeded the speed limit on the short trip. Speeders could be issued tickets on the spot.

Thirty years after it was built, the Chesapeake Bay-Bridge Tunnel remains one of the most stunning engineering feats of our time. Unfortunately, it is not as safe as it could be.

Authorities could remedy that situation by abolishing passing on the span and lowering speed limits. Now - before more lives are needlessly lost.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu