When D.C. solo practitioner Mark Zaid last month challenged an April citation for flashing his headlights to warn fellow drivers of a police speed trap, he knew his case was not the first ever. Several others were in Maryland state court that morning protesting their tickets for "prohibited use of flashing lights."
A judge tossed each ticket because the officer who wrote the citations did not show up to court. Montgomery County, Md., police said the officer was away on a military assignment. More to the point, the police department acknowledged that flashing lights to tip off drivers to a speed trap is not illegal. The department vowed to review the speed enforcement effort.
In late June, Zaid fired off a letter to the police department seeking an historical accounting of how many other drivers have been written up for “prohibited use of flashing lights.” He got his answer July 9 in an e-mail.
Between 2000 and 2008, Montgomery County police wrote 30 tickets to motorists for prohibited use of flashing lights, according to police department statistics provided to Zaid. This year alone, police through April have written 15 tickets to motorists who've been caught flashing headlights.
Count Zaid among those 15 drivers handed a $50 citation. Zaid was not immediately available for comment this morning. “Our community expects that our officers will enforce the law, not create it,” Zaid wrote in a four-page letter to the department last month.
Using lights to warn fellow citzens of approching armed government officers is a cherished national tradition. And it has been since the founding of our country. The first recorded case of lights in that use was memorialized in the poem, that said one if by land, two if by sea. . .
Posted by: Capt. Bob | July 14, 2009 at 07:21 PM