Oh, looks like L.A. is getting serious about speed limits.
In order for the LAPD to enforce speed limits on surface streets throughout the city using radar, those streets must have been subjected a traffic speed survey conducted by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) within the past seven (to ten) years.
LAPD issued 99,000 speeding tickets in 2010. That number dropped to just 16,000 in 2015. While LAPD can still enforce speed limits, they can only do so on those roads by pacing cars from behind. Pacing can be dangerous, and the preferred method of speed enforcement is with radar or lasers. However, if a road’s traffic study is not up to date, the police are prohibited from using radar or laser equipment.
To solve this, California began using what urban planners call the 85th-percentile rule, whereby the speed limit on a particular road is set so that approximately 85 percent of the vehicles traveling on that road travel below the given limit. That number is determined using—guess what—traffic speed surveys that are required to be conducted every seven to ten years.
Is all of this confusing? Let’s give you the simple terms, speed limits will go up and this will give LAPD power to give speeding tickets since the speeding limit has been updated.
