Two people were killed and three others injured early Wednesday when a car drove into the path of a county deputy’s patrol car on Route 40 in Elkton.

Police said Stephen Glen Webster, a 28-year-old Elkton-area resident, and his passenger, 29-year-old Elkton resident Carrie Marie Maurer, were killed when their 1998 Honda Civic was struck by Deputy David Michael Ellis’ patrol car in the westbound lane of East Pulaski Highway.

Lt. Bernard Chiominto of the county sheriff’s office said Ellis was among the three people injured in the crash, along with 22-year-old Elkton resident Tamie Dawn Harless and 27-year-old Justin Elliott of Avondale, Pa.

Ellis was taken to Union Hospital, while the two passengers in the Honda were taken to Christiana Hospital.

Webster was driving the Honda eastbound on East Pulaski Highway about 1:40 a.m. when he attempted to make a left turn onto Melbourne Avenue and pulled directly into the path of the westbound Ford Crown Victoria police cruiser, Chiominto said.

No information about the condition of the survivors was available as of noon on Wednesday.

In these photos, several vehicles are seen blocking the roadway Saturday following a four-car crash on Joseph Biggs Highway at the intersection of Smith Road in Rising Sun. Two drivers were taken to Union Hospital and the state police are investigating the accident.

In the wake of last month’s death of 14-year-old Anna Marie Stickel on the Amtrak tracks near Middle River, quite a few people can’t seem to wait to give the railroad a free pass.

I can. I’ve seen the condition of the fences along the tracks – where they do exist – in Middle River. It’s disgraceful.

If you drive along Orems Road alongside the tracks, not far from the spot where Anna and a friend gained access, you don’t have to get out of the car to find obvious gaps in the decrepit old fence. If you’re a teenager looking to get from Point A to Point B, it’s virtually an engraved invitation to take a shortcut. That’s not even taking into account the stretch behind Rock-a-Billy’s Bar & Grill where nothing but a sign stands between an intruder and the rails.

You can blame the trespassers all you want, but when someone has a hazard on one’s property, there is a moral if not a legal duty to put up an effective barrier between that danger and those immature or foolish or drunk enough to wander in.

If a private citizen builds a swimming pool in his or her backyard, the law expects a good-faith effort to protect it from young people who otherwise might wander in and drown. The pool owner too cheap to build and maintain such a fence had better have good liability insurance.

In the discussions that took place after Anna’s death, the point was frequently made that no chain-link fence could keep teenagers away from the tracks. No matter how many times the railroad repaired it, the prevailing wisdom holds, kids would find a way to go over, under or through it.

But could the prevailing wisdom be wrong? Is the technology of chain-link fencing so frozen in the 1970s that no improvements have been made since then?

I decided to put some of these questions to a man who knows chain-link fencing about as well as anybody on the planet – Bill Ullrich, past president of the Chain Link Fence Manufacturing Institute and a former owner of Baltimore’s Anchor Fence Co.

According to Ullrich, there’s no doubt that a modern, well-designed chain-link fence could keep people from taking shortcuts across the tracks. The 40-year industry veteran said a state-of-the-art chain-link fence would be almost impossible to cut through, burrow under or climb over.

“You can design a fence that’s very, very difficult for somebody to get through,” he said. “You put the right fence up, and people aren’t going to get through.”

The problem, Ullrich said, isn’t the technology. It’s money. A good chain-link fence isn’t cheap, he said, though it’s far less expensive than other materials.

This is usually where the howls go up from the industry insisting railroads couldn’t afford the cost of securing every last mile of the U.S. rail network.

Sorry. That’s a red herring. Ninety percent of the problem would be solved if the industry were to address a limited number of “hot spots” where railroad tracks separate residential communities from shopping, schools and other services.

Middle River is a prime example. South of there are mostly industrial areas. To the north is Glenn L. Martin State Airport. If the fencing in those areas is less than optimal, no big deal. The critical section is a two-mile stretch between Rossville and Martin boulevards where local residents have been crossing for generations. If an effective fence were in place for that stretch, the shortcuts would be eliminated.

With a good fence, there would be no reason to discuss prohibitively expensive notions such as noise barrier-type walls. Such a fence would complement the overpass, known as “Anna’s Bridge,” advocated by her mother Tara Stickel, but could be built much more quickly.

There is no one solution to the hazards in Middle River. All segments of the community need to come to the table with something to offer: from the schools, better education on the hazards of the tracks. From parents, a vow to give their kids the “train talk.” From neighbors, a commitment to call 911 when they see intruders on the rails. From police, a plan to quickly respond.

Amtrak should be at the table, too – with a plan to build the best fence possible in residential Middle River. In almost every other state, the railroad likely would have replaced that fence long ago for fear of legal liability. It is only because Maryland law favors defendants in civil cases that the railroad could become as complacent as it has.

Even if the cost in human lives from shoddy fencing doesn’t move Amtrak, it should consider the disruption to its schedules and the inconvenience to its passengers any time there’s a fatality on the tracks. You can’t keep the trains running on time on tracks that are insecure. You can set your watch by that.

Amtrak, by the way, was called for comment. It did not provide a response.

A judge handed down the maximum traffic violation fines Wednesday to two people blamed in a fatal accident in Glen Burnie.

Bobbi L. Steiner, 25, of Glen Burnie and Jason R. Fisher, 42, of Derwood, Montgomery County, were fined $500 each and ordered into a driver improvement program after Anne Arundel District Judge Jonas D. Legum found Steiner guilty of negligent driving and Fisher of negligent driving and not controlling his truck’s speed.

The charges stem from a fiery crash on April 25, 2008, when a truck driven by Fisher smashed into the second of two cars that had stopped or were moving slowly, one after the other, in the middle of Route 10 southbound.

Joseph D. Norfolk, the 23-year-old driver of the second car, was fatally injured.

Norfolk’s mother, Kelly Stinchcomb, sobbed as she told the judge Wednesday, “No amount of punishment can bring my son Joey back to me, but I feel there should be a price to pay when your actions cause the loss of a human life.”

The cause of the crash was a matter of dispute. Jason Wise, Steiner’s fiance and passenger, said Norfolk pulled in front of Steiner’s car and stopped short. He initially told police that Steiner then did the same to Norfolk, prosecutors said, but he retracted that statement on the witness stand.

Assistant State’s Attorney Erin Snyder said Fisher wasn’t paying attention when he drove his truck behind and into the vehicles, causing Norfolk’s sandwiched SUV to burst into flames. Fisher’s lawyer, Barry H. Helfand, contended his client simply did not have enough time to react when he came upon them.

Norfolk and Wise had known each other for more than a decade, but neither side said what, if any, dispute the two may have had.

Prosecutors say the case is an example of why a criminal negligence law is needed as a middle ground when they lack evidence for automobile manslaughter – which has a 10-year maximum prison sentence – and traffic tickets that carry only fines.

“Had we had something in the middle, we certainly would have charged that,” said Kristin Fleckenstein, spokeswoman for the Anne Arundel County state’s attorney’s office.

Del. Luiz R.S. Simmons submitted such a bill on Wednesday, as he has for several years. The legislation, supported by prosecutors, would create a level of negligence beyond a traffic ticket, but not as high as the gross negligence needed for manslaughter.

The Montgomery County Democrat estimates that 30 to 40 accidents each year fall into what prosecutors describe as a loophole in the law. His bill has not made it out of committee.

Two men who allegedly committed a strong-arm robbery in Newark on Tuesday night led police on a high-speed chase into Cecil County, according to Maryland State Police.

That chase led to a pair of crashes in Cecil County – one involving an unmarked police car from Delaware and the other involving a pick-up truck used by the alleged robbers.

According to police, the men ran from a Chevrolet Silverado after ramming it into a tree off of Providence Road, just south of Ed Moore Road, west of the Fair Hill Natural Resource Management Area.
Troopers in a Maryland State Police helicopter searched from above while police from Newark, New Castle County and the Cecil County Sheriff’s Office tried to track down the suspects on the ground.

However, both men were still at large as of 11 p.m., police said.

The collision involving the pick-up truck reportedly followed a single-car crash on Kirk’s Mill Road involving an unmarked police cruiser.

A spokesman for the Newark Police Department could not be reached Tuesday night and no further information was available regarding what led to the police chase or the condition of officers involved in the crash.

According to local police, the Chevrolet Silverado driven by the wanted men had been identified in an unauthorized use of vehicle complaint that a Perryville resident made to police sometime before Tuesday night’s chase.

An unauthorized use charge applies when a person receives permission to borrow a vehicle, but keeps it longer than the agreed length of time or drives it places other than those agreed upon.

The 75-year-old woman accused of causing an accident with a state trooper in Dorchester County this week has been downgraded to critical condition, according to hospital officials.

Hurlock resident Marjorie MacSorley was flown to the Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury after being freed her from her mangled Toyota Avalon following the two-car collission.

Police said she was in stable condition late Tuesday afternoon; however, on Wednesday, a hospital spokesman said she was listed in critical condition.

MacSorley’s daughter and passenger, 50-year-old Trappe resident Kathy MacSorley, was taken to PRMC after the accident, but has been released, according to the hospital.Meanwhile, officials at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma in Baltimore said 39-year old state trooper Kenneth Myers Jr. has been released from that hospital, where he was flown after emergency crews freed him from his unmarked 2006 Ford Crown Victoria following the collision.

“We are happy to hear (Myers) is being discharged,” MSP spokesman Greg Shipley said Wednesday. “We all hope the two women in the Avalon will also make full recoveries because yesterday was a pretty serious crash.”

Shipley said Myers, a four-year state trooper stationed at the Easton Barrack, would be placed on medical leave until he recuperates.The collision occurred at about noon Tuesday near the intersection of eastbound Route 50 and Route 731 in Vienna, according to police.

Immediately before the collission, Myers was chasing an eastbound vehicle on Route 50 after reportedly clocked it on radar travelling more than 80 mph.

Shipley said a preliminary investigation indicates Marjorie MacSorley pulled into Myers path on Route 50 after making a left turn from Route 731.

As a result, the front passenger side of Myers’ patrol car struck the front driver’s side of MacSorely’s Avalon, Shipley said.

Following the collision, Route 50 between Route 731 and Route 331 was closed until about 5 p.m.

Shipley said state police are continuing their investigation, which reportedly will determine how fast Myers’ cruiser was traveling and whether he actived the vehicle’s emergency lights and siren.

Shipley said the investigation could take several months.

A two-car collision involving an unmarked Maryland State Police patrol car on Route 50 in Vienna sent three people to the hospital Tuesday and shut down the highway for more than five hours.

MSP spokesman Greg Shipley said Tfc. Kenneth Myers Jr. was conducting traffic enforcement in an unmarked 2006 Ford Crown Victoria on westbound Route 50 at about noon when his radar unit detected an eastbound vehicle moving more than 80 miles per hour.

He said Myers made a U-turn onto eastbound Route 50 to stop the vehicle for speeding when a Toyota Avalon driven by 75-year-old Marjorie MacSorely, of Hurlock, pulled out in front of him from Route 731.