State Highway Administration officials are seeking to install about 20 battery-powered backup lights at Howard County intersections, including at the Jessup crossing where a crash killed two teenagers when the traffic light was out.
“The location of the fatal crash will definitely be included,” said Kellie Bouleware, an administration spokeswoman.
The state is planning to add 350 battery-powered backup lights statewide, including the 20 or so in Howard, between this month and 2010, she said.
But the highway administration has yet to receive funding for the project, she said.
Howard County Executive James Robey announced Tuesday that the county will begin adding 24 battery-powered backup lights to intersections in the 2007 fiscal year. The lights are on several roads intersecting with Little Patuxent, Broken Land and Snowden River parkways.
The issue of nonworking traffic lights gained widespread attention in Howard County after a fatal accident this past winter.
Slightly before 9:30 p.m. Jan. 6, power failed at the traffic light at the intersection of southbound Interstate 95 and westbound Route 175. About an hour and 15 minutes later, with the light still out, a tractor-trailer, exiting southbound I-95, struck a Volvo traveling on westbound Route 175, police said.
Scott E. Caplan, 19, of Columbia, and Theresa E. Howard, 18, of Sykesville, who were in the Volvo, were pronounced dead at the scene as a result of the accident.
Both a Maryland State Police officer and a Howard County officer responded to the scene, but left without marking the intersection withflares, Howard County police said.
Former Howard County Police Chief Wayne Livesay said he changed policy after the crash and ordered his officers never again to leave the scene of a nonworking traffic light without marking the area.
