The Jessup intersection where two teenagers died in a collision this winter at a nonworking traffic light is one of the most dangerous crossings in the county.
Howard County police have investigated three crashes at the intersection this year after the fatal crash, said the county?s traffic engineer George Frangos, who tracks the number of the crashes at the county?s various intersections.
Even with properly working traffic lights, the interchange of Route 175 and Interstate 95 in Jessup is among the five most dangerous intersections in the county, Frangos said.
“It?s definitely among the highest in the county,” he said. “It?s a high-speed interchange. There are 55 to 60 collisions there a year.”
State Highway Administration officials are seeking to install about 20 battery-powered backup lights at Howard County intersections, including the Jessup crossing, as part of about 350 it hopes to add by 2010.
Howard County Executive James Robey announced Tuesday that the county will begin adding 24 battery-powered backup lights to intersections in fiscal 2007 on several roads intersecting with Little Patuxent, Broken Land and Snowden River parkways.
Both plans were in progress prior to the crash that killed Scott E. Caplan, 19, of Columbia, and Theresa E. Howard, 18, of Sykesville, on the evening of Jan. 6, but residents and public officials have expressed concern about nonworking traffic lights since the incident.
Shortly before 9:30 p.m. that night, the traffic light at the intersection of southbound I-95 and westbound Route 175 went dark because of a power failure.
About an hour and 15 minutes later, with the light still out, a tractor-trailer, exiting southbound I-95, struck a Volvo, carrying Caplan and Howard, who were traveling on westbound Route 175, police said. Caplan and Howard were pronounced dead at the scene.
The driver of the tractor-trailer was not charged criminally.
