Some drivers claim speed cameras along Indian Head Highway in Forest Heights, Md. is making rather stark miscalculations.
Some drivers say the cameras focused on northbound and southbound Route 210 are committing highway robbery. Earl Lomax is a former police officer who says the two-speed camera tickets he got along the busy two-lane road this summer are bogus.
“Then, when I opened this thing I’m saying ‘Oh no! No, they didn’t! That’s impossible!'” remembered Lomax, who lives in Forest Heights.
Each time, Lomax says based on where he entered Indian Head Highway, he couldn’t have reached the speeds the tickets state. Lomax says there’s simply not enough time for his 40-foot-long, 40,000-pound RV with a car in tow to hit 53 miles an hour after leaving a side street and lumbering up the hill alongside the camera.
“It’s no way I can even get up to 25 miles an hour in that short period of time in this,” said Lomax, pointing to his RV.
Lomax says he’s trying to go to court to fight the tickets but he says they are too backed up now for him to even get a date.
Will Foreman owns Eastover Auto Supply in Oxon Hill. His drivers have gotten so many tickets he’s dubbed the area the “Forest Heights Toll Plaza.”
“We’ve had probably 18 tickets…This summer. And our drivers are responsible for that. I mean, they’re professional drivers but they haven’t done anything wrong,” stated Foreman.
The town approved the cameras in May. State highway officials say they’re within the mandatory one-mile radius of a school. The police chief has said the cameras are needed for safety because drivers easily double the 35 miles per hour speed limit there.
Drivers we spoke with disagree.
Don Colbert said, “Sounds like somebody’s making some fast cash…Something’s fishy. Something’s very fishy.”
We tried to reach Forest Heights’ police chief and the mayor but neither were available.
