New Jersey Turnpike

Imagine driving down the New Jersey Turnpike at night, when suddenly your car is hit from behind. It slides off the road. Your spouse is unconscious in the passenger seat. You reach for your cellular phone. You dial 911. But it's dark. When the dispatcher asks you where you are, you have no idea. Rescue workers don't know where to find you. Soon, though, they may. Federal and state officials converged at the Gloucester County communications center here yesterday to unveil a new technology to pinpoint the location of 911 calls made from wireless phones.

Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike They've all come to look for America - From "America" by Paul Simon Richie Donahue, a member of the turnpike's litter patrol, will tell you that in the mad dash to find itself, America leaves behind a trail of waste like a comet does ice crystals. Tires, gems, money, chains, suitcases, purses. Once there was a canary in a birdcage, and, yes, there have been bodies. Most of the debris is accidental or due to carelessness, but some of it is deliberate, such as the disposable diapers tossed out by litterbugs, or the guns that might have been used in a crime.

You have to wonder whether there was one small moment or incident, sort of like when Proust ate the madeleine, or the apple fell on Sir Isaac, that made two ordinarily sane, intelligent individuals like Angus Gillespie and Michael Rockland look at this abysmal stretch of asphalt, this least Edenic expanse of the Garden State, and think - in all seriousness - that it was an ideal subject for a book. But, no, it wasn't so simple. "The turnpike is bigger than that! It's about ideas and values and American aesthetics!"

A cluster of crashes, including one in which a 73-year-old man was killed when he was thrown from his car and run over, closed lanes and trapped commuters in slow-moving traffic for hours yesterday. Accidents plagued the area for much of the morning and snarled midday traffic in South Jersey. In the most serious incident, William Dawson, 73, of Fleetwood, Pa., was killed when he was ejected from his car and run over by a truck on the New Jersey Turnpike in Florence, Burlington County.

Seeking the dismissal of attempted-murder indictments against their clients, lawyers for two state troopers yesterday accused prosecutors of deliberately misleading a grand jury when laying out the facts of the now-infamous "turnpike shooting. " At a hearing in Mercer County Superior Court, the defense said prosecutors unfairly undermined the troopers' credibility by highlighting inconsistencies in their statements, not allowing that the officers might reasonably have believed they had to fire in self-defense.

As the ferry trudged through New York's foggy, mizzling inner harbor, 12-year-old Ryan Capinski sat below deck and began digging through the pockets of his khaki trousers. A moment later, as the palatial buildings of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty broke through the fog, Capinski had found the crumpled index card and began reading the information line by line. "His name was Joe Cap. C-a-p or C-z-a-p or C-z-o-p," he said. "Left Hamburg, Germany, sailed on ship Molke.

South Jersey is Eagles country; North Jersey bleeds Giants blue. If you didn't know that before, you certainly learned it this week, when the New York Giants let Ticketmaster sell 5,000 playoff tickets for Sunday's game against the Eagles - but only north of Trenton. The Giants guys know what they're talking about. From the Jersey capital east to the ocean, there's an invisible borderline that divides two football nations. Drive north on the New Jersey Turnpike and you feel it right around the Woodrow Wilson service area, near Exit 7A, outside Trenton in Hamilton.

A New Jersey judge dismissed charges yesterday against the two state troopers involved in the 1998 turnpike shooting, calling them victims of politics who were denied a fair shake because prosecutors cast them as "the poster boys for racial profiling. " Troopers James Kenna and John Hogan, both 30, hugged relatives silently, Hogan stifling tears, after Judge Andrew J. Smithson announced the decision in Mercer County Superior Court. Leaders of the African American community, on the other hand, called on the U.S. Justice Department to pursue civil-rights charges against the two white troopers, who during a traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike in Mercer County fired 11 shots at a van carrying four young minority men to a college basketball tryout.

New Jersey Turnpike revenue for the year through October was $47.1 million below forecasts, Bloomberg News reported. It said the turnpike authority collected $934 million in the first 10 months of 2011. Officials said, according to Bloomberg, that bad weather and high gasoline prices contributed to reduced use of toll roads by motorists.    - Inquirer staff

A woman was killed in a one-car accident today on the New Jersey Turnpike in Burlington County, authorities said. The victim, who police did not identify, was headed northbound through Westhampton Township about 2 p.m. when the vehicle she was riding in left the highway. The car went up an embankment and struck an overpass, said State Police Sgt. Stephen Jones. It's unclear if she was the driver or passenger. A second victim was airlifted to a local hospital, Jones said. ?

A 54-year-old Burlington Township man was killed Tuesday when his car apparently plowed into the rear of a tractor-trailer while traveling south on the New Jersey Turnpike, authorities said. State Police said the accident occurred at 5:13 p.m. near Exit 7 in Chesterfield Township, Burlington County. Sgt. Brian Polite identified the driver as Mario Francois. He said Francois was driving a Toyota Camry and rammed the back of a parked tractor-trailer. Polite said the truck driver, who had stopped to check his tires, was not injured.

One person is reported dead this morning in a one-car crash in Bordentown Township. Video from the scene shows a car that slammed head on into a New Jersey Turnpike sound barrier at the foot of Rising Sun Road where it meets Old York Road. The crash was reported about 5:45 a.m. Rescue crews initially requested a medical helicopter for a trapped motorist but then reported the victim was dead.

NEWARK, N.J. - Portugal's ambassador to the United States met with Gov. Christie on Friday for a private discussion that the ambassador said centered on forging closer business ties between the state and the European nation. The meeting came as two cases involving fugitives with ties to both New Jersey and Portugal are being fought over in U.S. and Portuguese courts. Christie and Ambassador Nuno Brito would not discuss the court cases or say whether they had spoken about them. U.S. officials are appealing the refusal of Portugal's Supreme Court of Justice to extradite George Wright to New Jersey.

TRENTON - Construction along the New Jersey Turnpike has been a boon for a small group of state troopers who oversee the work zones. A review of state payroll records by the Star-Ledger of Newark found six of the nine troopers assigned to the squad were among the top 20 overtime earners in the division last year. Most boosted their salaries by 50 percent or more. The six troopers tallied a combined $275,549 in overtime, an average of $45,924 each. That was four times the average paid to all troopers who earned overtime last year.

One person was killed this morning in a two-vehicle accident on the New Jersey Turnpike in Cherry Hill, State Police said. A Chevrolet crashed into a construction vehicle parked on the left shoulder of the northbound lanes, south of Exit 4, shortly before noon, authorities said. The male driver, who was trapped in the vehicle, died at the scene, police said. A female passenger was taken to Cooper University Hospital in Camden. Her injuries were unknown, authorities said. Authorities said the left lane had been shut down in the area of the accident as the investigation continued.

New Jersey Turnpike revenue for the year through October was $47.1 million below forecasts, Bloomberg News reported. It said the turnpike authority collected $934 million in the first 10 months of 2011. Officials said, according to Bloomberg, that bad weather and high gasoline prices contributed to reduced use of toll roads by motorists.    - Inquirer staff

A truck driver was killed Monday when he was crushed by a concrete barrier that fell off a flatbed trailer at a New Jersey Turnpike work site in Burlington County, state police said. The victim was identified as Carmen DiLuzio, 51, of Wilmington, a driver for Tipton Trucking Co. of Oxford, Pa. State police said DiLuzio was fatally injured about 8 a.m. when the barrier fell off the flatbed at a turnpike widening project site near Exit 7. State and federal officials are investigating.

The dizzying variation in toll charges levied on motorists whose cars all seem to carry the same E-ZPass transponder is becoming more than an annoyance. It's evolving into a significant consumer-fairness issue that is getting worse as some of the 24 agencies that issue E-ZPasses alter their pricing schemes to favor the motorists with their devices. It's simply unfair when cars entering the same E-ZPass lanes on the New Jersey Turnpike or to cross the Delaware Memorial Bridge are charged different fees.

TRENTON - Authorities said Friday that a 15-year-old Guatemalan girl was safe after being rescued from two alleged smugglers at a Burlington County truck stop on the New Jersey Turnpike. Trenton police say the teenager's mother had paid to have her brought into the United States. But after the girl arrived in Texas, police said, she was met by two men who then demanded that the mother pay large sums of money for the child's safe delivery. The mother made arrangements to meet the men Thursday at the truck stop, near Exit 7 in Bordentown Township.