Speed Limit Reduction Bill Advances

Do you believe your state lawmakers actually drive 20mph?

A bill which would allow Montgomery County to lower the speed limits on many roads to 20mph has passed the House of Delegates and approaching a vote in the State Senate.



House Bill 332 would allow Montgomery County to decrease the speed limit on any road "outside an urban district" to 20 miles per hour.  This would allow the county to set a different traffic engineering standard for speed limits than elsewhere in the state where this limit is 25mph.  The biggest practical effect of the legislation would be to allow lowering of speed limits on many roads from 25mph to 20mph where speed cameras can currently be used, but cannot be used PROFITABLY, turning more safe drivers into lawbreakers by lowering speed limits would make the cameras far more profitable.

The county delegation originally proposed two bills, one of which would allow lowering the speed limit with no traffic engineering justification at all to 20mph, the other which would permit lowering the speed limit on any road outside an urban district to 15mph.  The house delegation gave the first bill an "unfavorable" vote, but House bill 332 passed with an amendment to apply a 20mph limit rather than 15mph.  [See Environment and Committee Vote Here]  This change to the bill is of little consequence with respect to the impact on speed camera programs since 20mph is the lowest speed limit which can be enforced by a speed camera in Maryland, making it clear the real intent of this legislation is to expand the county's speed camera program by making it profitable to use speed cameras in locations where it is not currently profitable to do so with a 25mph speed limit.

Washington Post: Justice takes a turn for the worse with certain roadway cameras

By Courtland Milloy Columnist March 5 at 5:02 PM

 

Anyone who has been to traffic court knows the chances of beating a traffic-camera citation are slim to none. But those of us who appeared before Prince George’s District Court Judge Mark T. O’Brien a couple of weeks ago caught a rare break.

After noting that 90 percent of the cases that day involved right-turn-on-red citations, O’Brien announced to a nearly packed courtroom that he would reduce the $75 fines to $22.50 in court costs.

“The purpose of red-light cameras is to keep people from running through red lights, for obvious reasons,” O’Brien said. “But using them for right turns on red, I’m not so sure.”

Entire article at:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/justice-takes-a-turn-for-the-worse-with-certain-roadway-cameras/2017/03/05/6c31a29c-01ca-11e7-b9fa-ed727b644a0b_story.html?hpid=hp_regional-hp-cards_rhp-card-columnists%3Ahomepage%2Fcard&utm_term=.acb7c2b33ab7

Our challenge to Montgomery County, Prince George's county, and the City of Rockville:  Deploy signs stating "Right Turn on Red AFTER STOP" at three of the six RLC locations with the highest red light running rates, and provide the results after six months.  If this photo enforcement policy is about safety, it would be irresponsible NOT to do this.