Speed Camera Paranoia

Last month, I opened the mail to my first speeding ticket (in awhile). To my surprise, however, the ticket was for driving about 11 miles per hour above the posted speed limit on Avery Road, not on Route 108. Journeying through the forest, I must have missed the camera among the foliage and deer on Avery Road.

Speed cameras are ubiquitous in Montgomery County. Love 'em or hate 'em, you have to admit that they do slow zipping cars to a safer speed. The OBX has been fabulous about alerting readers of Olney's newest speed cameras: two on Route 108 by St. John's Episcopal School and two on Bowie Mill Road by Sequoyah ES. Even my husband phoned (hopefully not while driving) to warn to me on the day he saw the speed cameras set up by Sequoyah ES. Everyone has become so vigilant; I have become paranoid. Whenever I see a light flash beside the road, I don't think of something negative (like a gunshot or an explosion) or preposterous (a disco ball? paparazzi? where's the party?) No, I think: Uh-oh -- did I (or please, someone else) just get a speeding ticket?

On morning while traveling eastbound on Route 108 en route to the post office, I concentrated so hard on slowing down in front of the speed camera that I forgot about the post office ... and drove right past it! I made a (legal) U-turn to backtrack to the post office. I focused so intently on Route 108's westbound side's speed camera that I barely noticed the flash on a car in front of me which had actually sped up as it passed the speed camera.

Last week, when I trekked up Georgia Avenue to the Howard County's Glenwood library (about which I raved in the post "Library Traitor" on 2/19/11), I saw "Photo Enforced" speed limit signs posted by Glenwood Middle School and Bushy Park Elementary School, both just south of the library. By now conditioned like Pavlov's dog, I automatically slowed down and quickly scanned everywhere for an ominous white box or at least a camera perched atop a pole. Strangely, I saw nothing ... or was I missing something? Then I realized I was in Howard County, which uses mostly mobile speed cameras. With no white speed camera van in sight, I breathed a sigh of relief and sped on. Just kidding -- I didn't speed up.

Out-of-County Experiences

Taking advantage of Maryland's tax-free week, my kids and I went shoe shopping yesterday. Although Olney boasts multiple grocery stores, banks, fast food restaurants, salons and yoga studios, a person needs to leave town in order to find shoes. So up to Columbia Mall in Howard County we trekked.

After perusing small shoe stores in the mall, we finally found what the kids needed at Nordstrom. After ringing up our sale, the clerk was about to put the new shoebox in a paper shopping bag when I quickly offered her my reusable shopping bag. The clerk smiled knowingly and asked, "Are you from Montgomery County?" I guess our county's bag tax and my desire to be environmentally friendly have conditioned me to bring cloth bags (almost) everywhere.

Shoe mission accomplished, we contemplated stopping at JCPenney when we heard loud (even louder than me, my kids claim) exclamations of two thirty-something women gawking over a clothing purchase from ...  JCPenney: "This fabulous find was marked down and I had a great surprise at the register!" "Oh -- let me see!" Squeals of delight echoed through the mall as one woman pulled out a red striped shirt out of a plastic bag (remember, no bag tax here).

My kids and I whirled around to see what all the excitement was about. "Are they commercial people?!" my 10-year-old exclaimed. I expected to find myself either on Candid Camera or on the set of advertising shoot. Commercial or not, we then decided not to go to JCPenney, but to return home to Olney. Enough out-of-county experiences for one day.