Your signature is a voice for safer streets. Please join your neighbors in calling for a traffic safety study and meaningful traffic-calming improvements to protect the children, families, and residents who use Kingston Road every day because let’s face it: how many warnings are enough before action is taken?

Along the 100 and 200 blocks of Kingston Road, directly outside Hawthorne Elementary School, dangerous speeding and reckless driving has already resulted in at least three parked vehicles being totaled within the past year. Residents have documented these incidents with police reports and security camera footage that demonstrates just how fast vehicles are traveling through this neighborhood. This is not an isolated incident—it is a recurring public safety problem. We are asking Baltimore County and the Maryland Department of Transportation to act now to help prevent the next crash from involving a child, pedestrian, cyclist, or resident instead of another parked vehicle!!!  

Kingston Road is more than just another roadway. It is home to hundreds of families, an elementary school, school bus stops, pedestrians, and children who walk to school, ride bicycles and scooters, and play outside before and after school. On a nice day throughout the summer, and until sunset, hundreds of children and adolescents are on the streets between our many parks, riding, running, and playing in our parks, basketball courts and in their front yards, on sidewalks and in the process, they are on this road;  among the traffic and in between parked cars. 

Like children everywhere, they are active, energetic, and sometimes unpredictable. Our streets should be designed with that reality in mind.

Unfortunately, residents have witnessed a troubling pattern of reckless/distracted driving, speeding and crashes involving parked vehicles along Kingston Road.

Within approximately the past year, three parked vehicles on the 200 block of Kingston Road have been struck and totaled, including one captured on residential security cameras. The footage demonstrates the tremendous force generated when a moving vehicle collides with parked cars, pushing them several feet in a matter of seconds.

While property can be replaced, lives cannot.

The security footage serves as a sobering reminder of what could happen if a child, pedestrian, cyclist, or resident happened to be walking between parked vehicles at the wrong moment.

Residents have also shared additional accounts of speeding, reckless driving, and similar crashes occurring elsewhere along Kingston Road. These experiences suggest that this is not an isolated incident but an ongoing neighborhood safety concern.

This petition is not intended to criticize individual drivers or assign blame.

Instead, it asks Baltimore County to take proactive action before someone is seriously injured.

We respectfully request that Baltimore County conduct a comprehensive traffic engineering study of the 100 and 200 blocks of Kingston Road, including the area surrounding Hawthorne Elementary School.
As part of that study, we ask the County to evaluate:

Current vehicle speeds.
Traffic volume.
Crash history.
School arrival and dismissal traffic.
Pedestrian activity.
Residential parking conditions.
Sight distances.
Existing speed limits.
Placement and visibility of speed limit signs.
Existing traffic control devices.
Overall roadway design and pedestrian safety.

Following completion of the study, we respectfully request that Baltimore County consider implementing appropriate traffic-calming improvements, including but not limited to:

Installation of speed humps, speed tables, or other proven traffic-calming devices where appropriate.

Installation of audible pavement markings (rumble strips) or similar treatments where appropriate to encourage reduced speeds.

Additional speed limit signs and other traffic control signage where warranted to improve driver awareness.

Enhanced school-zone warning signs or flashing school-zone beacons if appropriate.
Improved crosswalk markings and pedestrian warning signs.

Any additional traffic-calming or pedestrian safety improvements recommended through the engineering study.

Why This Matters

The section of Kingston Road between the 100 and 200 blocks serves as the front entrance to Hawthorne Elementary School while also functioning as a residential street lined with homes and parked vehicles.

Families should not have to worry that speeding traffic could turn a normal afternoon into a tragedy.

Communities across Baltimore County have benefited from traffic-calming projects that have successfully reduced speeding and improved pedestrian safety. We believe Kingston Road deserves the same attention.

Taking action now is far better than waiting until someone is seriously injured before improvements are made.

Please Join Us

If you live in the Hawthorne community...

If your children attend Hawthorne Elementary School...

If you travel Kingston Road...

Or if you simply believe residential neighborhoods should be safe for children and families...

Please sign this petition.

Together, we can encourage Baltimore County to study Kingston Road, listen to the concerns of its residents, and implement thoughtful, effective traffic-calming measures that will help protect our children, our families, and everyone who travels through our neighborhood.

 
Petition Goal
We respectfully request that Baltimore County:

✅ Conduct a comprehensive traffic engineering study of the 100 and 200 blocks of Kingston Road.

✅ Evaluate current roadway conditions, traffic patterns, and pedestrian safety.

✅ Install appropriate traffic-calming measures based on the findings of that study.

✅ Work collaboratively with residents, Hawthorne Elementary School, and community leaders to make Kingston Road safer for everyone.