Police officers in Rockville MD are refusing to pay dozens of $40 speeding tickets. Even when the camera caught them in the act of speeding.
Apparently in the last eight months of 2007 speed cameras in Montgomery County recorded 224 cases in which police vehicles were traveling more than 15 kilometers per hour over the speed limit. However, supervisors dismissed 76 of those citations after determining that officers were responding to calls or had a valid reason to break the speed limit.
148 citations were without a valid excuse and of those 148 two thirds haven’t been paid!
Apparently the police union says officers shouldn’t have to pay because the citations are issued to the owner of a vehicle. Of course the Chief of Police doesn’t agree:
“We are not above the law,” Manger said. “It is imperative that the police department hold itself to the same standards that we’re holding the public to.”
I’m sure the Counties residents don’t agree either as it would be their tax dollars paying the unpaid fines.
