Mar 24, 2018 3 min read

Tanya Devenney was on her way back from California University of Pennsylvania, where her son, Dominick, is a sophomore, two days after Christmas when she found herself being cited for running a stop sign in Washington.

Having driven Route 40 from California, she turned onto South Lincoln Street at midday on her way to Locust Avenue, a straight shot to the family’s home in Meadow Lands.

What irks her about the situation is that she was driving in the right lane of the two-lane, one-way North Lincoln Street at East Chestnut, where there was no stop sign on the corner next to her.

There was a single stop sign on the opposite corner next to Washington & Jefferson College’s James David Ross Family Recreation Center, which opened in April of last year next to the Henry Memorial Gymnasium.

“You don’t see a stop sign there. I’m not looking over there,” she said Wednesday in an interview. She said she told this to the state trooper who cited her, and entered a “not guilty” plea, requesting a hearing. In the meantime, she spoke to PennDOT and the Washington Street Department.

Arriving this week before District Judge Robert Redlinger, armed with photographs and the applicable section of the Pennsylvania Code, she was surprised to find others caught in the identical situation.

“I prayed,” she said. “I thought I was going to win” and be found not guilty.

Redlinger’s office said in addition to Devenney’s Dec. 27 citation, three others were cited the next day by the same state trooper, Andrew Brown.

Her argument was that she couldn’t see the sign and that the code states stop sign placement should optimize “its visibility to the road user it is intended to regulate” and, “If only one stop sign is installed on an approach, the stop sign should not be placed on the far side of the intersection.”

Her legal position apparently didn’t convince the district judge, who changed the charge to a lesser one – improper signaling – so she wouldn’t have points against her driving record.

Would it have made a difference in Devenney’s and the other cases if those cited had photos of the intersection lacking a sign on the east side of North Lincoln Street and one taken at a later date when a sign was placed there?

Redlinger was in hearings Thursday morning and said through a staff member that he had no comment.

Magistrates’ decisions in summary cases can be appealed to Washington County Court, but Devenney, 44, said she’s not pursuing the matter any further through the legal system.

“I already paid my fine” and costs totaling $149, Devenney said, noting there was a businessman in the same boat who hired an attorney at the magisterial level, “and he didn’t get anywhere.”

Motorists traveling through the same crossroads will now see two stop signs posted at the intersection, one on each side of North Lincoln Street.

Washington Mayor Scott Putnam said Wednesday police Chief Bob Wilson called the street department when he learned the stop sign was missing.

“As soon as that was noticed, they put another sign up, and that was as far back as January,” Putnam said of the city street department.