20 Minutes For Police To Respond

Joe-

On Saturday as we came down 13 in front of the Mall, we saw a vehicle drift out of the right lane to the left and nearly hit another vehicle.

As the driver entered the ramp to the Bypass, she continued to drift from lane to lane, and it seemed apparent that she was very drunk.

As the vehicle proceeded onto the southbound bypass and wandered from lane to lane, going only 30-35 mph,  we had no doubt there was going to be an accident.

Just after we got onto the bypass, we dialed 911 to report the vehicle, and I turned on our emergency flashers to warn the drivers behind us who were going much faster, and stayed behind her.

Another vehicle behind us came alongside, and the driver looked over to see if I had called 911. When he saw I was on the phone, he went up ahead of the vehicle and also turned on his flashers, and we began to work as a team to try to prevent her from hitting anyone.

The 911 dispatcher transferred us to the State Police dispatcher, who told me they didn't have any units available at that moment. We saw 2 MSP units about that same time alongside the road with their lights on at an accident scene.

We continued to 'escort' this vehicle and beg the dispatcher to get us some help as the vehicle exited onto eastbound 50, nearly hitting 3 or 4 vehicles, drifting onto the rumble strips numerous times, and even going off the road onto the grass. The dispatcher was apparently trying to get the Sheriff's department to respond at that point, but they, too, were maxed out with nobody available.

The vehicle turned left onto northbound Sixty Foot Rd, crossed the westbound lanes of 50 (!!), and drove toward Pittsville, going left-of-center at least 3 times with oncoming traffic.

When we got to the stop sign at Old Ocean City Rd, we boxed her in with our vehicles and finally stopped her. We both got out of our vehicles, and as I approached the driver, my heart stopped.

There was a small boy in the passenger seat, unrestrained.

We asked her to pull off to the right into a parking lot and kept her there while waiting for police to respond.

Finally,  two Wicomico County deputies arrived..

From the time I dailed 911 till we finally got help was 19 minutes-- from the Mall, all the way to Pittsville.

Whose fault is that? MSP? The Sheriff's Department?

Absolutely not. They can only do so much with the funding they have. And that's the point.

What in the world is more BASIC in local and state government than public safety?

The State Police and the Sheriff have to cover the whole county, and when they're only given enough money to have a few units on duty on weekends, it doesn't take much to max them out.

I see today that some of our local state delegates are sponsoring legislation to build a fake lighthouse in Cambridge.

Isn't that special? $300,000 for a fake lighthouse, when you can't even get POLICE help when you need it.

And I wonder what could be done with the Sheriff's budget if we weren't blowing so much money on overpriced parking lots for the civic center, and the like. Or buying overpriced PARK land!

Our priorities are completely whacked. And they aren't going to change till some people look some other people right in the eye and DEMAND change.

We need to remember the purpose of government, and its core functions, and make sure the basic categories are properly covered.

Right now, we're not even close-- and a little boy could have died in a fiery accident.

Let's get our stuff squared away.