MOTORISTS TICKETED BY CHP PATROLS; SPEEDING DRIVERS SURPRISED ON 2-LANE RURAL HIGHWAY.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

Officers with radar guns nabbed two dozen speeders and issued two other tickets for wrong-way drivers Tuesday during an enforcement along San Francisquito Canyon Road, a fast-moving freeway alternative.

California Highway Patrol Officers Tony Getzelman and Bruce Turnn spent the morning monitoring commuters on a straightaway portion of the rural highway, near Dry Gulch Road.

That's where drivers tend to accelerate well beyond the 55 mph speed limit or even try to pass slower-moving cars on the two-lane road, said Officer Doug Sweeney, spokesman for the CHP's Newhall station.

``We've had speeds as high as 100 mph,'' Sweeney said. ``They act like it's a raceway up there.''

Commuters favor San Francisquito Canyon Road as a bypass to the Antelope Valley Freeway because it connects with Elizabeth Lake Road to the north and with Copper Hill Drive and McBean Parkway to the south, Sweeney said.

Officers chose a spot about midway between the U.S. Forest Service ranger station and Los Angeles County Fire Department Camp 14, among the few landmarks on the remote road.

Sweeney said the CHP enforces the speed limit on San Francisquito Canyon Road every month. ``We periodically send our officers up there to work that stretch of road,'' he said.

``We've had numerous citizen complaints in the area. There are a lot of people who cross over the double yellow lines,'' he added.

Local residents and commuters angered by fellow drivers' recklessness have alerted the CHP's Newhall station to the problem, Sweeney noted.

Although the road is straight, passing is not allowed - and the yellow lines are unbroken on both the northbound and southbound sides - because of hilly sections that cut visibility, Sweeney explained.

Although no speed limit is posted on much of San Francisquito Canyon Road, the maximum allowable speed is 55 mph, he noted.