California Close to a Vote on Allowing More Speed Traps

Stuff like this makes it really hard to believe traffic laws, especially speed limits, are implemented in the interest of safety.

From someone with experience in the field, things like speed limits are NOT implemented in the interest of safety. Take my word on that.

flicmod

Depends on where the speed limit is.

Speed limits in school zones are in the interest of safety.

Speed limits in construction zones are in the interest of safety.

Speed limits in high accident areas are in the interest of safety.

On the other hand, speed limits on the open road are replacements for adaquate driver training and vehicle inspections.

Someone is just desperate for cash. Next bill you see will be fines and environmental sin taxes to hunt down every last petrol head in California.

Policing for the purpose of revenue generation runs totally contrary to the original purpose of policing...to protect and to serve. Totally shameful.

Yep, this proves once again that speed limits are mostly about yet another way of turning driving into a profit center for government.

For governments with the power to tax, among other things, there's never enough money, no matter how much they confiscate from people.

Why these people have any more credibility with anyone is amazing.

You do realize this a voluntary "tax". Don't want to pay it?... don't speed.

You want to speed? Well you get to help the state with it's cash shortage.

I think this will finally persuade a (small) percentage of people to drive according to the speed limit for once. But I agree that this is just another way for them to permeate dollars from your pocket into theirs.

Actually, firstwagon, that last example you listed isn't necessarily true. It's extremely hard to pin-point the cause of accidents to speeding. The NHTSA lists over 200 causes of accidents. It's asinine to put so much blame for accidents on just speeding. Which is exactly what our government does.

We had a case here in PA on a stretch of I-81 where several fatal crashes happened in only a couple years. PennDOT blamed them all on speed and decided to lower the speed limit from 65 to 55. What they never talked about was that every fatal accident that happened within those 2 years or so were head-on collisions where vehicles actually crossed the median and entered on-coming traffic. How is speed alone to blame for that? Seems to me that the authorities were quick to denounce driver inattention or distraction, and equally as quick to promote anti-speeding legislation.

Oh, by the way... that section of road now has "Fines Doubled" signs every where. And this is not the only case in which something similar has played out.

'You do realize this a voluntary "tax". Don't want to pay it?... don't speed.'

When the speed limit is 55 and EVERYONE is doing at least 70, driving the speed limit is actualy dangerous.

Here's a link to the actual documents:

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=ab_564&sess=CUR&house=B&author=portantino

Judging by his other legislation, Mr. Portantino doesn't seem like a bad person to me. I think this is just a misguided attempt to help with the state budget. He has a number of other budget-related items in his list, though they make up the minority of his work. Overall, I would reelect him (but he's not in my area).

Here's some good text from the Senate Committee analysis:

1.Purpose
The City of Pasadena, the sponsor of this measure, would like to establish lower speed limits on some of its residential streets that are currently classified as collectors and arterials and not as local. In some cases, this means lowering an existing speed limit by 5 mph; in others, it means not increasing it 5 mph in accordance with the results of an ETS. In either case, the problem, according to the City of Pasadena, is that a lower speed limit would not be enforceable because the lower speed limit is not justified by an ETS and could constitute a speed trap. Local streets and roads, however, are exempt from the speed trap law. To allow for lower speed limits not justified by an ETS for which radar may be used, this bill changes the definition of a local street or road to accommodate certain road segments in the City of Pasadena. The author contends that this bill is narrowly tailored and gives the City of Pasadena the flexibility to set appropriate prima facie speed limits within their residential neighborhoods.

My analysis:
In a nutshell, this bill only applies to a very small portion of streets in Pasadena. It also seems to have very good reasoning behind it, and is not simply a thinly-veiled method of collecting revenue for the state. I withdraw my previous opposition to the bill's passage.

And regarding your first two points firstwagon:

I don't know about other states/providences, but the school zone speed limit in PA is 15. FIFTEEN! Even I, can run faster than that. This applies to all school zones (I think). Meaning this includes schools in rural/suburban areas where the school itself is often set back hundreds of yards from the road, and virtually no one walks there.

I often drive through construction zones on the PA Turnpike where the speed is posted at 40, there's not a soul to be seen, and the only road hazard is a closed shoulder. Pointless.

Here it's 30 kph which is about 18 mph. I have no problem with that. It's only in effect during school hours and the school zones are not big. If people cannot slow down for that short distance and watch for kids running out then they aren't responsible enough to have a licence.

As for construction, if you post at 40, people will still do 50 or 60. Have you ever worked construction where idiots are flying past at 60 mph only a few feet away?

firstwagon,

You didn't take into account what bbechtel said. There are MANY school zones that are in rural or suburban areas where the buildings themselves are set back so far that the adjacent road can safely handle higher speeds of at LEAST 25 or 30. But what happens is that the DOT (or, better yet, the FHWA) comes up with a blanket system that says ALL school zones should have uniform speeds. That's ridiculous. There's no context to it and it totally disregards the individual community's needs.

Are you saying that the speed limit in construction zones should be set artificially low because people will still do 50 or 60 anyhow? If so, that defeats the purpose of the speed limit. Artificially low limits to get people to slow down at least a little bit will still yield revenue for the State because the cops don't care.

I haven't worked "construction" per se, but I have done plenty of field work and traffic studies where "playing in traffic" was necessary. Yeah, it's a little scary at times. But my experience tells me that most people slow down most of the time when they see you walking around with a bright fluorescent vest on.

Excessively lowering the speed limit in construction zones fixes nothing. Especially on Interstates or freeways where normal speeds exceed 50 MPH. Most instances on free- and highways, there is barrier setup between the construction zone and travel lanes, which makes lowering the speed limits a moot point. In the unlikely situation where someone is traveling ENTIRELY way too fast for conditions (ie. 80, 90, 100+ in a construction zone), the driver could be held responsible for endangering others.

I can't comment on every school but I've never seen a rural school with as low a limit as the urban ones. Most around me are 50 kph (30 mph). I question how much the "individual community's needs" can be helped by saving a few seconds by going faster through school zones.

I agree speed limits shouldn't set artificially low but you just have to read above posts to see the complete disregard most people have for the limit... whatever it is.

It's not about "going faster through school zones". It's about putting the design in context to the community and maintaining individual freedom to drive faster if they so choose.

But once you bring the conversation back to disregard for speed limits, we enter again into why the speed limits are so low in the first place. You're creating a cyclical argument.

There's evidence that shows that speed limits should be set to the 85th percentile of speeds traveled on a given roadway. That is not the case in, I would say, 90% of roads in this country. They are set artificially low in order to grab more revenue for the State. And herein lies the problem...

He looks like of like a fatter Jay Leno.