Montgomery County authorities have come up with a new way to catch motorists who are illegally using a cell phone or driving without their seatbelts fastened. This week, during the morning rush hour on River Road, motorists saw a man holding a cardboard sign, whom appeared to be homeless. He was nothing of the sort, but rather an officer serving as a lookout as part of a sting operation for the Bethesda-based 2nd district police.
During the two hours of rush hour traffic, he would identify violators and provide their license plate numbers to other officers stationed down the road who would then pull them over and issue citations. As you can imagine, many tickets were issued. The fine for driving while using a handheld device can range from $83 to $160 and the fine for texting while driving is $70 and a point on your driver’s license.
The police have performed this operation twice before at this particular intersection and have been doing similar stops weekly throughout the county.
