Silver Lake Speed Limits May Go Up, And So Could Tickets

LOS ANGELES, CA —City officials are considering a move that would make it legal for you to drive faster on major city streets, but, paradoxically, it would also make it easier for police to ticket you for speeding.

The Los Angeles City Council, is looking to address a quirk in the law that limits officers' ability to ticket drivers on hundreds of streets, including several in the Westside, where the speed limit is considerably lower than the natural flow of traffic. If the city increases the speed limits to make them more in line with the natural flow of traffic, officers can start ticketing speeders again.

Overall Los Angeles officials will consider raising speed limits on more than 100 miles of city streets. If the Los Angeles City Council approves the increases, speed limits would rise on some of the Southland's most familiar thoroughfares, including San Vicente Boulevard through Mid-Wilshire and stretches of Reseda, Victory and Chandler boulevards in the San Fernando Valley, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The increases, introduced Wednesday, reflect a Catch-22 that city officials have faced for decades on dozens of miles of major streets: Raise the speed limit, or lose the ability to write most speeding tickets.

The dilemma stems from a decades-old California law designed to protect drivers from speed traps, which requires cities to post speed limits that reflect the natural speed of traffic. If a speed limit is too low, or if it is more than 7 years old, the police can't use radar guns or other electronic devices to write speeding tickets there.

As recently as this summer, more than 200 miles of Los Angeles streets, including corridors that are among the deadliest for pedestrians and bicyclists, had expired limits and very little speed enforcement.

The Transportation Department's proposal would raise the speed limit on 101.6 miles of streets and boost the share of streets where officers can write speeding tickets to 97.5 pecent, officials told The Times.

Nearly two-thirds of the street miles that would see higher speed limits are in the Valley, which has seen several waves of increases over the last decade on its broad, flat boulevards. Most Valley streets would see speeds rise to 40 mph and 45 mph.

The proposed increases follow the City Council' decision last December to raise speed limits on 94 miles of streets, mainly in the Valley.

The city will also consider lowering speed limits on 11.5 miles of streets where traffic speeds have slowed, including a 2.1-mile stretch of Alvarado Street between Hoover Street and the 101 Freeway.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report. Photo: Shutterstock