Two Tickets, One Offense, Mad Motorist

Liz Poliner was driving north on Connecticut Avenue from her District home one Friday last month, when a police officer pulled her over and wrote a speeding ticket. According to the ticket, which cost her $80 and a point on her license, she was going 39 mph in the 30 mph zone through Chevy Chase Village.

After she paid the ticket, she got a notice in the mail saying a village speed camera fixed to a pole on Connecticut Avenue had recorded her going 42 mph. She owed $40.

The camera picture was taken about a minute before the officer stopped her. The distance between the camera and the officer was about 1,400 feet. That's not fair, she thought. Double jeopardy: She's being fined twice for the same offense. Couldn't she at least pick which fine to pay?

"I wish I had a choice," said Poliner, a poet and fiction writer who drives up Connecticut a couple of times a month.

Montgomery County and its municipalities use plenty of speed enforcement cameras, but the ones on the poles between Bradley Lane and Chevy Chase Circle spark many of the complaints I get. Some drivers think its unfair to place cameras on what they see as a six-lane, tree-lined commuter route.

That's not the way it looks to Roy A. Gordon, Chevy Chase's police chief . To him, it's a residential neighborhood with a long distance between traffic signals and a narrow median, making it difficult for pedestrians to cross the avenue and dangerous when vehicles are speeding. The cameras have been in use for about a year, and speeding has been sharply reduced, he said.

But Gordon understood the situation Poliner describes and said that if she called and allowed him to compare the closely timed citations, he would consider voiding the camera ticket. That's a civil penalty assessed against the owner of the vehicle, and the chief has the power to deal with it. But he said there is nothing he can do about the ticket issued by the officer, because that falls under Maryland's criminal code and is dealt with in the courts.

Poliner said she appreciated the chief's offer to review the ticket, but she decided to pay the $40 camera ticket and ask for a court review of the $80-and-a-point ticket, which could also lead to a slight increase in her car insurance payments.

I hope she wins that appeal. After all, the camera violation was the first one, even though it arrived later in the mail.

But drivers should be cautious on Connecticut: Gordon says villagers have noticed that cars slow when passing the fixed-pole cameras then speed up again.

The chief has a couple of mobile cameras that can be placed at other spots on the avenue. He said the cameras are programmed so that multiple tickets won't be issued to the same vehicle if the violations occur within a short time span.

But some drivers will find that they're helping to finance new pedestrian safety projects, including a sidewalk for nearby Brookville Road.