DATE: Sunday, September 7, 1997             TAG: 9709050002

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial

                                            LENGTH:   28 lines

SAFETY CARNAGE CONTINUES

If the accident rate on the Chesapeake Bay-Bridge Tunnel doesn't subside, authorities should post notices warning all who embark on that 17-mile span that their lives are at risk.

The Bridge-Tunnel claimed five lives on Labor Day weekend when a compact car was hurled into the water after hitting an oncoming car. On Wednesday a head-on smash up injured four people - one so severely he had to be airlifted off the span by Norfolk's Nightingale helicopter.

Bridge-Tunnel authorities are confident that head-on collisions, which produce the most violent and deadly accidents, will be eliminated once the second span opens in two years. That's hardly reassuring for those traversing the dangerous span now.

There is one certain way to reduce head-on collisions on the Bridge-Tunnel: lower the speed limit and ban passing there. Authorities are reluctant to do so because they fear it will result in ``driver frustration, horn-blowing and illegal tailgating and passing.''

Nonsense. Illegal tailgating and illegal passing could be curtailed by an enhanced police presence on the bridge.

And driver frustration? It beats driver fatalities by a long shot.

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