Senator proposes fines, prison sentences for speed demons

REVERE-The city’s new state senator wants to whack fast and furious speeders who test their nerves on Routes 16 and 107 with up to a $1,000 fine.State Sen. Anthony Galluccio proposed the fine and up to a two and a half year prison sentence for drag racers. State law already prohibits “accelerating at a high rate of speed in competition” but Galluccio said North Shore highways, in particular Route 16, seem to attract speeders.”Drag racing has been a pervasive problem in our communities that has led to a number of tragedies,” he said.Revere police call the Revere Beach Parkway stretch of Route 16 one of Revere’s top five throughways for accidents.An estimated 200 accidents occurred on the Parkway in 2005. A 72-year-old Parkway resident was struck and killed while attempting to walk across the Parkway Aug. 3. Two men died in an accident on May 20 that left car parts strewn across the parking lot of Eagle Heights Church.City Councilors say decades worth of accidents, many fatal, have turned roadsides of state highways bisecting the city into grisly memorials to accident victims.City Councilor John Correggio and his colleagues voted in 2005 to urge state legislators to spend more money on enforcing speed limits and keeping speeding drunks off the roads.They criticized a state highway department plan to remove guardrails on Route 1A near Revere and Gladys streets and to remove pedestrian crossing signals at Mahoney Circle.Route 1A, also called North Shore Road, and 107, locally known as the Marsh Road, are straight lengths of highway favored by drag racers who would be fined between $100 and $500 under Galluccio’s bill for speeding, skidding tires and racing engines.