Unsafe Driving on Residential Streets, Not a Problem, Says City of Gaithersburg

By Keith on May 1, 2023

Traffic report for a road in Gaithersburg showing drivers hitting 44% over the speed limit, yet the city says that's not an enforceable violation

I've personally complained about dangerous driving on residential roads in Gaithersburg several times. The end result is always the same. There is no unsafe driving happening on residential roads in Gaithersburg, I must dreaming.

The last time I complained, the city did a mini traffic study to prove that there is no unsafe driving on residential roads in Gaithersburg, certainly not on my road.

Police setup a traffic camera on my street for approximately six days. My street is about 100 yards long. It's tiny. Despite the camera clocking cars going 36 miles per hour - 44 percent over the speed limit - according to the city of Gaithersburg, that's not an "enforceable violation."

What that means is that on my tiny street, drivers can literally go as fast as they want. A driver would need to be really hammering the throttle break 36 miles per hour on 100 yards of road, so let her rip. As far as the city is concerned, all they see in the data are safe drivers, so there's no problem, other than a whiny resident harshing on everyone's reckless fun.

I have more thoughts on this nonsense here.

In a nutshell, there are things the city could do to address this issue, but they've setup their little systems to make sure they will never detect the problem with reckless driving on residential roads in Gaithersburg. For the record, I am not calling for more police enforcement, I'm calling for action from the city to do things that will slow traffic. They refuse to even acknowledge that this is a problem, and that's the problem.

If you think that's lame, and you're sick and tired of people tearing through your neighborhood like it's their own personal race track, contact the City Hall, the City Council and the Mayor and tell them what you think. I'm sure they will care about your thoughts as they did mine, but maybe if enough of us complain ...

Here's their contact information.

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