Yesterday, Assemblymembers Laura Friedman (D-Glendale) and Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) made a first stab at codifying some of the recommendations made by a task force studying California’s speed limit law.
Friedman warns that the bill is “a work in progress,” likely to be amended during the legislative process. Certainly the first steps it calls for are small ones: for now, A.B. 2121 would simply extend the period of time between required traffic speed surveys, under certain conditions.
Current state law requires a regular survey of traffic speeds–every five or seven years, depending on the circumstances–on road segments. If surveys are older than that, the state considers the speed limit to be a speed trap, and unenforceable. That leaves some jurisdictions unable to enforce their speed limits because their data is too old.