Follow uip to California Speed limits

beemerphile1 wrote:
The info from a highway patrol office may be good and may be BS. It is unknown if you spoke to a CHP officer or simply a civilian. Either way, what you got was their personal interpretation of the law. Many times a judge who actually knows the law will toss an officer's interpretation out the window.

It is best to only read the statutes for yourself and not repeat opinions of others.

Great point. A lot of laws are open to interpretation. The officer can interpret the law one way and a judge can interpret it another way entirely. Some examples in Maryland where I enforce the law;
Speed greater than reasonable or prudent- pretty vague

Move over law for stopped emergency vehicles- requires vehicles to move a full lane over "when possible" and to reduce speed otherwise... Sometimes the judge might disagree about when its "possible" to move over, other times they might disagree about how far speed is to be reduced.

Following too closely- pretty vague

Failure to display lighted lamps in unfavorable visibility conditions- pretty vague.

I've never driven a trailer in California, but we did RV across the state when I was much younger. I don't find reduced speed limits for trucks and trailers to be a safer way to travel. I believe that having a large speed delta between vehicles occupying the same roadway is a recipe for disaster. Laws in the State of Kalifornia, especially traffic laws, are very... unique. Kalifornia has an interesting way of passing laws through propositions and expensive studies and just plain craziness. They can be very far out in right field at times.

If laws like this made the roadways safer, you would expect to see a large difference in collision rates between Kali and other states, a large difference in congestion rates, etc. Kalifornia would be the premier state for reduced collisions, reduced fatalities, reduced traffic congestion, etc. Unless I missed it, Kalifornia doesn't have vastly superior numbers.

In fact, in fatal traffic collisions per capita, Kalifornia averages 8.11 fatalities per 100K residents, the national average is 10.9, and the state with the lowest rate is 3.42. https://cdan.nhtsa.gov/SASStoredProcess/guest

Its harder to find recent data on injury or property damage only collisions, but suffice it to say, slower speed rules for trucks haven't made an overwhelmingly large difference in collision rates.