B4
System is designed to monitor drivers and deter accidents
by Ann Scott Tyson
Metro is installing cameras on its entire fleet of 1,500 buses as part of a five-year, $3 million pro- gram to monitor bus driver per- formance and improve safety. The new camera system focus-
es on drivers and activity outside the buses, transit officials said. The cameras record constantly during bus operations, and when a driver makes any extreme move- ment — such as turning the bus sharply or braking or accelerating quickly — the cameras capture the eight seconds before the in- cident and the four seconds after. The video and audio of the in- cident are then automatically downloaded wirelessly from the bus. More than 1,000 Metrobuses al- ready are equipped with security cameras aimed at passenger areas and outside the front of buses to document and deter accidents, crimes and conflicts, Metro spokesman Reggie Woodruff said. If the video on those cameras is not retrieved within a couple of days, the cameras record over it. Metro is installing the new
cameras on buses and training drivers at each of its nine bus ga- rages, starting at the large Bla- densburg garage, said Jack Re- qua, Metro’s assistant general manager of bus services. He said Metro will begin turning on the
S
KLMNO New cameras to catch Metrobus mistakes
“This region is highly congest- ed and has lots of traffic. . . . We are pleased with a progressive rate of decrease,” he said. Along with the training and
safety benefits, Metro officials said, the system is expected to help reduce damage to buses, workers’ compensation claims and injuries. Improved driving habits by bus operators, such as not driving too fast or accelerat- ing too quickly between stops, will help save fuel, Woodruff said. Jackie Jeter, head of Amalgam-
COURTESY OF METRO
Technicians have begun installing DriveCam equipment. It is scheduled to be in operation on all Metrobuses by January.
cameras in October, and all will be operational by January. “If a driver is showing less at- tention, with hands not always on the wheel, we can use it as train- ing,” he said. “Because the opera- tor knows the camera will be watching him or her, they will try to minimize the times the system is triggered, and it will lead them to be more alert.” Even driving over a pothole can trigger the sys- tem, Requa said.
DriveCam, the San Diego-based company contracted to conduct the program, will analyze data from any incidents and provide it to Metro to promote better driv- ing habits and to help with in- vestigations. Metro has pur- chased the cameras and will have the option of operating them and analyzing the data with its own staff after two years.
Money became available for the
cameras last spring, Requa said. “When we had the opportunity to do both [security cameras and DriveCam], we jumped on it, be- cause we know others had used it and it had a pretty drastic impact on reducing accidents,” he said. Despite some highly visible bus accidents this summer — such as an alleged hit-and-run in Ballston this month and a bus that crashed into a yard in Silver Spring in July — Metro’s bus accident rate has been declining, according to data from the agency. The bus accident rate for fiscal year 2010, which ended June 30, was 1.57 accidents for every 100,000 miles. “Those were preventable accidents,” where the Metrobus operator was at least partly at fault, Requa said. The year before, the rate was 1.79, and in fiscal 2008, it was 1.91.
ated Transit Union Local 689, which represents most frontline Metro employees, did not object to the cameras but said they too narrowly focused on driver skills. She said broader safety measures are needed, including assigning more police officers to prevent as- saults on bus drivers. DriveCam is in use by transit
agencies in San Francisco, Austin and New Jersey, officials said. In the Washington area, DriveCam users include Washington Gas, Amerigas and AGL Resources. “As part of our commitment to
safety, we currently have 56 Wash- ington Gas vehicles that were re- cently equipped with DriveCam,” said Ruben Rodriguez, director of corporate communications for Washington Gas. He said the com- pany hasn’t reached conclusions about the cameras’ effectiveness. Design work is in progress to install cameras on Metro’s rail cars, but there is no installation timeline, Woodruff said. The 7000 series rail cars, scheduled for de- livery beginning in 2013, will come with cameras, he said.
tysona@washpost.com
Md. man convicted of killing wife gets life term killing from B1
After her mother’s slaying, Da- vis said, Chase called and asked her whether she had received any life insurance money but exhib- ited no grief. Antoinette Chase worked as an analyst for the Department of Homeland Security and was the couple’s primary wage earner, Davis said. Spencer Chase worked in a nursing home, she said.
Antoinette was in the process of splitting from her husband when she was killed, prosecutors said.
On the day his wife was killed,
Chase told police that he had left the house about an hour earlier to run errands and left his wife’s car running in the driveway with the garage door open. Some of Antoinette’s personal items — her wedding ring, her cellphone and her BlackBerry — were missing. Police obtained a
Spencer Ellsworth Chase’s DNA, along with his wife’s, was found on a discarded pair of gloves.
warrant to have the victim’s serv- ice provider “ping,” or send sig- nals to, her BlackBerry, according to trial testimony.
Arts & Style Brush up your Shex’pir The Washington Shakespeare Company is going where no D.C. theater has gone before—performing an entire evening of Shakespeare in Klingon.
Business
Mobile shopping: Retailers continue to come up with new ways to reach consumers through their smartphones. A look inside the brave new world of mobile commerce.
The Magazine
Frank Cho’s world: The comic book artist from Beltsville has made a career of being bawdy and bold. Is that enough to break through to the next level?
Outlook
Gentrification and the Mayor: If a majority of voters in the District believe conditions in the city are improving, why is Adrian Fenty in danger of losing his job? Columnist Robert McCartney tackles that question.
Travel
Run don’t walk…or vice versa: Two stories chronicle alternate means of sightseeing by foot— a gentle walk in San Francisco, and a brisk run through Memphis.
Some stories may not run due to breaking news.
Pick up the Sunday Post this week and you’ll find extra money-saving coupons in the plastic pack.
Sunday, August 29
An initial search by police in the Glenn Dale area, about six miles away, was fruitless. How- ever, Brown, the homicide detec- tive, used his own hand-held GPS device to narrow the location of the signal and began opening storm drain covers, according to trial testimony and court records. When Brown flipped open the
Prosecutors said Antoinette Chase was splitting from her husband when she was killed.
third storm drain cover, he found the victim’s cellphone, her Black- Berry, her wedding ring and her purse, containing her credit cards. Brown also found a plastic bag containing work gloves and rubber-soled water shoes. The shoes were size 11 — the same size Spencer Chase wears, according to trial testimony. Tests determined that the gloves con- tained DNA from both Antoinette and Spencer Chase.
castanedar@washpost.com
Summer is getting even hotter
with extra coupon savings!
THE REGION
Walter Reed worker sentenced in theft
A former government contrac- tor working as an administrative assistant at Walter Reed Army Medical Center was sentenced to one year and one day in jail Thursday for stealing $165,477 through phony travel reserva- tions, said Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. attorney for the District. U.S. District Judge Paul L.
Friedman sentenced Ronnita N. Dunbar, 29, of Landover Hills for theft of government property and ordered her to repay the medical center.
Dunbar pleaded guilty May 4 to misusing her position arrang- ing government travel for doctors and residents at the center’s de- partment of surgery from Janu- ary 2004 until May 2008.
— Spencer S. Hsu MARYLAND
Developer must pay fines, restitution
A Prince George’s County de- veloper has been ordered to pay more than $500,000 in fines and restitution for failing to place de- posits made by home buyers into an escrow account and for not having a sufficient surety bond to cover the deposits. Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler said Thursday that the Consumer Protection Division is- sued the fines against McDaniels Homes and its owner, Derek A. McDaniels, for violating the state’s Custom Home Protection Act, the New Home Deposit Act and the Consumer Protection Act. “The law in Maryland is very clear: Homebuilders must prop- erly handle consumer deposits and they must honor their com- mitments to homebuyers,” Gan- sler said in a statement. McDaniels could not be reached for comment. A number listed for McDaniels Homes was disconnected. The Consumer Protection Divi- sion found that McDaniels and his company collected substan- tial deposits from at least 10 fami- lies toward the construction of new homes in Prince George’s. McDaniels never began construc- tion on the homes and did not re- turn the money to the home buy- ers, state officials said.
— Ovetta Wiggins VIRGINIA
2 lanes on I-66 east closing for weekend Two of the three lanes of In-
terstate 66 east will be closed this weekend as construction crews prepare to shift traffic onto new bridges that carry the highway over the Capital Beltway. The work is part of the high-occu- pancy toll lanes project. The Virginia Department of
Transportation said major delays are likely between Nutley Street and the Beltway and warned that all traffic may be stopped for up to 30 minutes during overnight periods. In addition to the two lanes closed on I-66 east, the ramp onto the Beltway will be closed, as will all Nutley Street on-ramps to I-66 east. I-66 east access to the Vien- na Metro station and the left HOV exit to I-495 north will re- main open throughout the week- end.
Drivers can expect up to 35- minute delays Saturday and Sun- day during peak hours — 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. — from Route 50 to just past the work zone. By 5 a.m. Monday, the three I-66 east lanes will be shifted to
FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 2010 LOCAL DIGEST
the new bridges over I-495. HOV drivers traveling in the left lane on I-66 east, heading toward the District, will need to merge to the right lane before I-495 north to continue into downtown. — Ashley Halsey III
Fugitive Va. coach arrested in Poland
A Fairfax County man who fled the country after his arrest on charges of molesting a 12-year- old boy has been captured in Po- land and now awaits extradition back to Fairfax, authorities said Thursday. John E. Hamilton, 39, of Cen-
treville formerly coached base- ball in the Fort Hunt Youth Ath- letic Association. A man contact- ed Fairfax police in 2009 and said he had been sexually assaulted by Hamilton as a boy. Hamilton had coached him in 1997. Hamilton was charged in June 2009 with aggravated sexual battery and three counts of taking indecent liberties with a child under his supervision. He was scheduled to plead guilty in October, but he disappeared. Interpol and the U.S. Marshals
Service joined the search for Hamilton. On Wednesday, a Marshals
Service official said, Hamilton was on a bus leaving the Czech Republic and entering Poland at the border town of Gliwice. He said Hamilton “appeared to be acting in a suspicious manner and was unable to provide identi- fication.” Polish border officials were able to determine his identity from other documents Hamilton was carrying and contacted In- terpol late Wednesday. Officials in Washington sent Hamilton’s fingerprints to Poland and con- firmed his identity.
— Tom Jackman
Fairfax City man held in Louisiana slaying
A Fairfax City man who fre- quently returned to his home town of Lafayette, La., went there for a court hearing this month and was arrested on a charge of first-degree murder. Timothy Falgout, 50, a Pizza
Hut delivery driver, was fatally stabbed in Lafayette in March. In- vestigators who found the knife used in the killing also found blood from two people besides Falgout, according to records filed in Fairfax County this week. Deputies allege that one of the blood samples was matched through DNA records to Aaron Richards, 34, who lives in an apartment on Gainsborough Court. The other blood sample was
that of an unidentified female, court records state.
Richards had been arrested in
Lafayette last year for attacking and robbing a young woman, Lt. Craig Stansbury of the Lafayette Parish sheriff ’s office said Wednesday. He had a court hearing in that case Aug. 5 in Lafayette. Investi- gators decided to see whether he would appear, Stansbury said, and when he did, he was arrested. Investigators trying to identify the third DNA sample on the knife that killed Falgout ap- proached Richards’s wife, who also lives in Fairfax City and had traveled to Louisiana with Rich- ards, Stansbury said, but she de- clined to provide a sample. This week, Fairfax City police obtained a search warrant and took a sam- ple of her DNA for Lafayette in- vestigators.
She has not been charged in the case.
— Tom Jackman
LOTTERIES August 26
DISTRICT Mid-Day Lucky Numbers:
Mid-Day D.C. 4: Mid-Day DC-5:
Lucky Numbers (Wed.): Lucky Numbers (Thu.): D.C. 4 (Wed.): D.C. 4 (Thu.): DC-5 (Wed.): DC-5 (Thu.):
Daily 6 (Wed.): Daily 6 (Thu.):
MARYLAND Day/Pick-3:
Pick-4:
Night/Pick-3 (Wed.): Pick-3 (Thu.): Pick-4 (Wed.): Pick-4 (Thu.):
Match 5 (Wed.): Match 5 (Thu.):
Multi-Match: 1-9-5 9-3-2-7
3-9-7-6-2 6-9-9 6-7-0
1-0-2-1 6-0-7-9
7-4-2-8-9 1-3-3-8-6
8-26-28-29-30-33 *16 5-15-18-21-24-33 *34
2-6-2
9-6-4-4 4-9-6 4-2-4
3-1-1-6 0-3-6-8
4-16-26-28-34 *31 15-20-22-37-38 *5
VIRGINIA Day/Pick-3:
Pick-4: Cash-5 (Thurs.):
Night/Pick-3 (Wed.): Pick-3 (Thu.): Pick-4 (Wed.): Pick-4 (Thu.): Cash-5 (Wed.): Cash-5 (Thurs.): Win for Life:
Power Play:
Hot Lotto: *Bonus Ball
**Powerball N/A 5-5-3 7-4-4-5
8-14-16-20-22 2-2-5 N/A
0-6-1-5 N/A
3-6-26-28-30 N/A
9-14-23-29-35-36 ‡5
MULTI-STATE GAMES Powerball:
16-17-29-31-36 **23 3
13-14-15-22-35 †17 †Hot Ball
All winning lottery numbers are official only when validated at a lottery ticket location or a lottery claims office. Because of late drawings, some results do not appear in early editions. For late lottery results, check
www.washingtonpost.com/lottery.
‡Free Ball
TheWashington Post is printed using recycled fiber.
NF407 2x1.25
10-001
S388 2x8
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