Highway worker killed in late-night hit-and-run in Maryland

With the yellow light atop his pickup truck whirling its warning from three lanes away, highway worker Ghassen Sabra focused his attention on his job in the fast lane of a dark highway an hour past midnight on Thursday, unaware until too late that a vehicle was bearing down on him at high speed.

It clipped him and sped on, leaving him sprawled in the center lane of Route 50 in Anne Arundel County. Then, a tractor-trailer apparently hit Sabra; the tractor-trailer's driver said he didn't see the prone body in time to stop.

It apparently was the first death of a highway worker in Maryland since 2006 and brought to eight the number killed in the past five years. Sabra's death was unusual in that it didn't happen in a construction zone. Nationally, statistics show that highway workers are vulnerable to traffic and that their work zones are deadly for people in vehicles as well.

More than 700 people were killed in work-zone crashes in 2008, the most recent year for which figures are available. About 90 percent of the fatalities were drivers and their passengers. Maryland joined numerous other states this year in deploying mobile speed cameras in work zones.

Authorities investigating Sabra's death say he apparently was not observing protocols established by the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA).

"We may not know for a while why he was out there at the hour he was out there," said David Buck of the SHA. "It seemed odd to us, too. It's usually a daytime operation, and policy calls for a spotter to be out there with him."

Normally, when the contracting company that deploys devices to track traffic volume plans to work on equipment, it e-mails the highway administration in advance. Then, a state vehicle with flashing lights or a state police car with flashing lights would be dispatched to alert approaching drivers of the work zone, Buck said.

That option for a "protection vehicle or police vehicle" is spelled out in nine pages of SHA guidelines that address installation and removal of traffic-counting devices. Those same guidelines also say "work should take place approximately 100 feet in front of the work or protection vehicle in the direction of travel."

In this instance, Buck said, the state received no prior notification, and Sabra was working alone on a dark stretch of Route 50 eastbound between Route 2 and Bay Dale Drive.

Sabra's vehicle was parked on the right shoulder, and he was struck in the farthest-left lane of three, Buck said. It was not clear whether he was laying down or taking up the slender rubber tubes that are laid across all lanes and connected to a counter box that usually is chained to the guardrail. Sabra, 52, of Goldsboro, N.C., was wearing reflective clothing, Buck said.

Buck said that Sabra's employer, Baltimore-based Sabra, Wang and Associates, had gone through safety training in recent months.

The firm declined Thursday to say why he was working an hour past midnight.

"Our people, they know what they have to do," said Jennifer Grabowski, the firm's human resources director. "We want to wait for the investigation to be done before we talk about it more."

In a statement, the company said, "Gus was a loyal, hard working man who enjoyed his work and the colleagues and clients he worked with. Gus is survived by his wife and four children."

By happenstance, an ambulance headed for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, en route to Queen Anne's County, came upon the accident minutes after the truck struck Sabra, who was pronounced dead at the scene.

The truck driver, Ricky C. Beasley, 51, of Mount Olive, N.C., told state police investigators that he did not see the first vehicle strike Sabra, and police said they had no description of that vehicle, which did not stop. No charges were filed against Beasley.

The Maryland State Police are asking drivers who were in the area of eastbound Route 50 and Bay Dale Drive between 12:30 and 1:30 a.m. Thursday to contact them at 410-761-5130.