Law enforcement officials urge passage of negligent driving bill
STEVE LASH - Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer - January 28, 2009 6:12 PM
ANNAPOLIS — Law-enforcement officials urged Maryland legislators to close a “gaping hole” in state law that allows some drivers to escape with only a traffic citation after causing a fatal collision.
Testifying Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee, Montgomery County Police Cpl. Greg Lewis voiced frustration that all too often his only recourse is to issue traffic citations to a driver whose extreme carelessness took another person’s life.
“I prosecuted them to the fullest extent of the law,” Lewis told the committee. “I wrote them [traffic] tickets.”
Maryland law treats vehicular manslaughter — a wanton or reckless disregard for human life — as a felony, while any motorist offense short of that, absent alcohol or drugs, is regarded as a traffic violation.
Lewis testified in support of House Bill 97, which would close what he called “that big gaping hole” between felony and traffic violation by making it a misdemeanor when a driver kills someone through a “substantial deviation from the standard of care … exercised by a reasonable” motorist.
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