Overweight Trucks Ignore Posted Signs on Belclare Road

When Baltimore County officials recently told Mark Leisher there was nothing they could do to enforce the limit on the size of trucks constantly barreling down his street all hours of the day and night, Leisher said he felt like he had hit a brick wall.

“Nobody wants to get involved,” says the 47-year-old resident of a house that sits on the corner of heavily traveled residential intersection of Belclare Road and McShane Way.

Patch.com sat in front of Leisher’s house for about at hour mid-morning and documented numerous trucks violating the posted weight limits without consequence.

Leisher moved to this neighborhood, close to the Dundalk Avenue and the Key Bridge ramp, 14 years ago in search of a better quality of life for him, his wife and two young daughters. But instead, he says, he and his family has been terrorized by speeding motorists and huge trucks passing within a few feet of their backyard picnic table every day.

Boiling Point

But it was when Leisher witnessed multiple accidents within weeks near his house that he decided to take action.

Leisher had long given up any hope that local police would ticket trucks for overweight violations.

"They're just too busy," he says.

So instead, he contacted the Baltimore County Traffic Engineering Office and asked them to perform a traffic study of the trouibled intersections. Leisher hoped the county would install two, four-way stop signs that he believes would be a simple and inexpensive way to ameliorate the problem.

However, before such a study can be performed, Leisher discovered that 75 percent of the affected residents must sign a petition requesting it.

“So, I decided to make up a flier and I put it on the doors of 130 of my neighbors,” he says.

The one-page flier, which Leisher distributed in December 2010, asked his neighbors to join him in his attempt to have the  county install two four-way stop signs.

Unfortunately for Leisher, only 22, or 16.6 percent of Leisher’s neighbors, responded to his flier. “I can’t tell you how discouraging this was—especially when so many of my neighbors complain about the problem,” says Leisher.

His  next move was to contact and join the Baltimore County Police and Community Relations Council, but, so far, nothing has come out of it, he says.

“They listen and let me speak, but nothing has been done to stop the truck violations and the speeding,” says Leisher.

At a late January meeting, Capt. Woodland M. “Butch” Wilson III, the North Point precinct commander, met briefly with Leisher, offering more police support.

Appeals to Elected Officials

Leisher then decided to contact and seek the help of every local,  state and federally elected official that represents Dundalk—but the results were also disappointing.

Initially, he says, he only got one response, from a representative of state Sen. Norman Stone.

Now, it appears, his voice, along with others, is finally being heard.

Del. Joseph "Sonny" Minnick has scheduled a town hall meeting to discuss truck traffic around Holabird and Dundalk Avenues, and Beclare Road, on Thursday, Feb. 24 at Sacred Heart of Mary School Hall on Youngstown Avenue. (Read Sonny's take on the problem and get information about the meeting .)

But as Leisher watches the oversized trucks rumble past his house in defiance of the law,  he says it remains a constant reminder of the less-than-fair shake he and local residents have received from government officials and politicians to date.

The town hall meeting may be a start, but Leisher wants action, not talk.

“The real question is, 'What are you doing for the people?'" he  says.