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Valley Speed Limit Increase is about Greed |
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GuestWords
By Ron Kaye (Posted first at RonKayeLA.com )
I admit I drive too fast so you can imagine my delight in knowing that it's speeders like me who decide the speed limit. That's right the fastest 15 percent of drivers decide the speed: if we drive 60 mph, that's the speed limit.
 You can imagine how happy that makes my wife who's always nagging me to
slow down. I can now respond happily, "But honey the speed limit on
Desoto Avenue is 50 now, not 40."
That's right, folks, thanks to the greed and ingenuity of your City Council member and the handsomely paid employees of your city Department of Transportations speed limits are going up all over the Valley right now by 5 to 10 mph.
I know that doesn't make a lot of sense but when you wade through this, you'll understand the law is as crazy as the lawmakers and the craziest of all are your L.A. officials who care so little about you that they would put your lives at risk for the money they get from speeding tickets.
This is about greed, not the safety of children or other pedestrians or even the law-abiding safe drivers.
The purpose is to keep the cash from traffic fines coming into the bottomless pit of the city treasury that's spending far more than it takes in and is facing a half billion deficit. To do that, they need to keep the radar guns legal and state law requires periodic updates on how fast traffic is moving so the speed limit gets adjusted to the speed of traffic.
The update -- which is now under way across the Valley where motorists can drive fast during off-peak hours on wide streets -- is required to be able to use radar guns to catch speeders. So the city goes out when traffic is light in off-peak hours and measures the speed of the first 100 cars that go by. The slowest 85 don't matter. It's the 86th that sets the speed limit.
"The public votes with the gas pedal,'' traffic engineer Alan Willis explained today at the Transportation Commission meeting where a new round of speed limit increases were approved.
These included Victory Boulevard between the 405 and Shoup Avenue, Desoto from Ventura Boulevard north to the 118, Balboa Boulevard north from Ventura to Foothill Boulevard.
Can you believe those streets are all in my neighborhood? I just hope I was driver No. 86. (Former Daily News editor, turned activist, Ron Kaye can be reached at:
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) ◘
CityWatch
Vol 6 Issue 67
Pub: Aug 19, 2008
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