Sticking to the letter of the law on Lincoln Drive: 25 m.p.h.

Every day Frederick Rhodes does a thing so rare, so stubborn and so incredibly foolhardy that even his wife has come to question his sanity.

He drives within the speed limit on Lincoln Drive.

“This is where the straightaway starts,” he said on a cold drizzly commute home last week, as his 11-year-old Nissan Stanza puttered along the slow lane. “Things usually start opening up. “

Around him, everyone else was opening up, leaving the compact man in a compact car in their rearview mirrors. Rhodes continued on, waging his snail- like protest in silence, his point driven home by a huge sign painted on a piece of paneling sprouting from his sunroof:

“Lincoln Drive Speed Limit 25 m.p.h. This traffic hazard brought to you by the stupidity of the Philadelphia Police and Traffic Engineering. “

Maybe it’s that he’s got a wife and four children, and he can’t afford any more traffic tickets. Maybe it’s his work – for 27 years he’s been a technician for the phone company, so he is constantly fiddling with things that don’t work. Maybe, he says, it’s his Irish blood, or simply an obsession that comes with having Rhodes as a last name.

Whatever the reason, Frederick Rhodes has taken it upon himself to become a daily nagging reminder of the rules of the road on the 1.7-mile green ribbon of an artery through Northwest Philadelphia that a judge recently called ”Mario Andretti Drive. “

That was moments before the judge found Rhodes guilty of doing 48 m.p.h. on a 35 m.p.h. strip of the drive.

So when the signs call for 35, Rhodes goes 35.

When the road narrows and turns, and the signs say 25, he slows to 25.

When they call for 15, he . . . goes . . . f . . . i . . . f . . . t . . . e . . . e . . . n . . . .

Even if everyone else is zipping along at 50.

If he is creating a traffic hazard – and it is rare to find people doing the speed limit on Lincoln Drive despite the fact the 92d Police District sits like a Victorian squad car right on the drive at Gypsy Lane – Rhodes says his conscience is clear.

“In the beginning it was really hard to put up with the abuse of people blowing horns, shaking their fists, swerving at me, giving me the finger. Then I said, ‘I’m not going to look at them; I’m gonna put blinders on. ‘

“Some people may think I’m crazy, but I’m a hard-headed Irishman and they got my Irish temper going. “

Rhodes, 45, is a spring of a man, a wiry and energetic former Marine radar technician who gets tightly wound over the subject of the drive’s speed limit, writing three-page cover letters of complaint to police and various state and local authorities.

His paragraphs can run two typewritten pages and often he launches into capital letters to HAMMER HOME HIS POINT. His contention, that officials set an unreasonably slow speed limit so they could generate traffic tickets, is bolstered by graphs, footnotes and a song he composed about Lincoln Drive to the tune of Alice’s Restaurant.

“You can drive Lincoln Drive at 45, but you gotta pay the cops their fine. ” (His pacing, once again, is entirely his own. )

In a separate background paper, he describes what he calls “the long stressful meander” – his daily trip on Lincoln Drive.

“If while going southbound I am an annoyance to other drivers, in the northbound direction I am an absolute hazard. “

This is because he – unlike anyone behind him, he says – drops from about 40 to 25 as he flows from Kelly Drive onto Lincoln Drive.

“For those stuck behind me there is little hope of escape any time before the straightaway after the Gypsy Lane Police Station. Once I reach the straightaway, this is the point of maximum danger. The drivers behind me quite often by this point have started blowing their horns at me and are not in a particularly rational state of mind. . . .

“They seize the moment by picking any opening in the unending flow of traffic whipping by in the passing lane. What happens next does not take a rocket scientist to figure out, there are vehicles hitting their brakes and horns blowing. “

His obsession started at 5:15 a.m. on April 28, 1993. The officer clocked him doing 48 in a 35 zone.

For eight years, Rhodes had commuted from Willow Grove to his Center City job by way of Lincoln Drive – usually before 7 a.m. and then in reverse after 4:30 p.m. As a technician for Bell Atlantic, he is often called to work in the middle of the night.

He says experience has taught him these laws of the road:

* People push the speed limit both during rush hour and off-peak hours.

* Police ticket more on off-peak hours.

* Police hang out at the straightaways, where cars pick up speed.

“The city has decided they have a nice little revenue stream,” he says. ”It’s just like farmers planting crops. They let it grow until it’s harvest time, then boom, boom, boom, they pick people off at $150 a pop.”

In traffic court in June, the judge offered to lower the points that the speeding ticket would add to his driver’s license. But that would have required him to plead guilty, something he wasn’t comfortable doing.

He was found guilty and received all five points. His fine: $163. He spent another $26.50 appealing the decision to Common Pleas Court. The second judge was no more impressed with his arguments.

“I told him I would continue driving at 25,” he said. “I’ll drive 25 on that roadway till they do something about it. “

So far authorities have not been moved to push for a new speed limit.

“It’s a windy road. It’s very dangerous,” said Capt. Herbert J. Lottier, commander of the 92d District.

“Twenty five is a reasonable limit. You can’t have one section 25, another 35, then down to 25. It’s reasonable to keep a constant limit. There are hairpin turns. To increase it to 35 because there are some sections where you want to do 35 is absurd. “

Unless Rhodes or authorities blink and end this odd standoff, look for a 1983 tan Nissan Stanza with Pennsylvania plates to be the cause of the backup on the drive during rush hours.

Frederick Rhodes is moving as fast as the law allows.

By Daniel Rubin, May 22, 1994.