They're watching

Veirs Mill Road is a ribbon of concrete I know all too well. It connected my high school to one of the bigger local parishes, Georgia and Connecticut avenues to Rockville Pike, and my adolescent years to the first years of my adult life.

For much of its length, Veirs Mill is a six-lane road, the kind of suburban D.C. thoroughfare where traffic dictates your speed. During rush hour, you'll be lucky to move; at other times, it's like an empty turnpike.

Needless to say, late at night in my reckless youth, I often traveled the road at speeds unsanctioned by the law.

A few weeks ago, I found myself again traversing Montgomery County, Md., in search of supper for a few hungry folks.

The route took me from one end of Veirs Mill to the other. It was after rush hour, so the road was largely empty.

As if I were 17 again, my right foot almost automatically descended as I hit an open patch. But I soon found my way impeded by a few scattered cars.

The universal rules of empty highway - universal to the Maryland suburbs, at least - should have had us all driving well above the 40 mph speed limit.

But we weren't. In fact, on a mostly empty road, people were actually driving a few ticks under the speed limit.

This wasn't Florida. This was the D.C. suburbs, where everyone drives like a maniac. And nobody was.

I picked up the dumplings (Mama's in Rockville are the best in at least four states) and headed back toward my childhood home. All along the way, D.C. drivers were driving like they were from someplace else. Someplace sane.

It struck me as I coasted down the hill toward my parents' house: Those folks were driving exactly like folks tip-toeing through Emporia. In other words, they were worried about getting popped for speeding.

I hadn't seen a single patrol car during the whole trip, which could mean only one thing: Montgomery County, Md., my childhood home, had deployed speed cameras.

And it creeped me out.

Cameras designed to catch red-light runners are one thing (Montgomery County also has those). When you rip a red, you're putting other lives at risk. Automated speed enforcement is different. And not just because I've had a ticket or two.

Almost everyone exceeds the limit at one time or another. Check your speedometer on the way to work. On Hampton Roads highways, VDOT might as well append a "+9" to speed limit signs, for all the respect they get.

A road's safe speed is partially dependent on conditions. That's why most people drive slower in heavy rain or traffic or when visibility is poor. It's why we drive faster on an empty highway.

Except on Veirs Mill. There, and on the other roads I drove that week, the speed of traffic was constant - and constantly slow - apparently under the threat of law. Regardless of the time, traffic was a line of Stepford Drivers parading down empty roads at speeds that seemed silly.

I have no doubt we were safer. Speed kills, after all, and Washington-area drivers are ordinarily reckless and more than a little crazy. Plus, there's no presumption of privacy on a public road. And a speed limit is a speed limit.

Even so, I detect some ambivalence in Montgomery County about the whole enterprise. The threshold for a ticket is the speed limit plus 12 mph. You don't get any points on your license. It's a civil offense, not criminal. And they tell you where the cameras are going to be.

In other words, if I'm still not sure how I feel about speed cameras, neither is Montgomery County.

The next day, I tried to remember to behave. I put a yellow sticky on the steering wheel: "They're watching!" it said.

But a right foot, I discovered, has a will of its own.

I understand they mail you the ticket.

Donald Luzzatto is The Virginian-Pilot's editorial page editor. Email: donald.luzzatto@pilotonline.com.