Police, right place right time.
Today coming home on highway 20 which is a road safe to do 50-55 but only has 2 places safe to pass. Today tho, we were in a long line of blocked traffic due to a few young people in a small sedan. th...
Forum Discussion
MarkTwain wrote:
55 miles speed limit is not an ABSOLUTE NUMBER AND WAS NOT INTENDED TO BE AN ABSOLUTE. Read your DMV law manual regarding speed limits. Life is too short to be so annal??????
In California, the "speed limit" is just that - you cannot legally go faster than that speed. You can, and are expected, to go lower than that if the circumstances warrant it. Meaning, if it's night and storming and you can't see 5 ft in front of you, then you should be driving less than that speed limit to be safe.
On the flipside, there are laws against impeding traffic and unsafe driving. Meaning, if the circumstances warrant the speed limit, and you choose to drive less than half of that and you do not move over to let others pass you (and don't have your hazards on indicating a vehicle/driver problem as the cause for the slow speed), then you can be ticketed for impeding traffic or unsafe driving.
It goes both ways.
There is a grey area with impeding traffic and unsafe driving in that an officer could deem you as doing so if you are driving the speed limit when those around you are going faster. This usually is an issue in the fast lane of a freeway. It is up to interpretation and can be fought in court. They don't usually give out tickets for this unless the driver is purposely blocking other cars or showing other aggressive reactions to faster drivers - the cop will point out that it is not your job to force everyone else to obey the speed limit.
