Drivers often responsible for speed limits
By Tony Bizjak, Sacramento Bee
Who determines the speed limit on streets you drive daily? In a lot of cases, it’s … you.
The answer is complex. Like it or not, drivers often get to vote with their gas pedal foot.
State law requires cities to measure the speeds that drivers travel on certain – but notably not all – streets, and use the results to adjust speed limits. The streets where local officials are required to do “speed surveys” are known in the traffic engineer lingo as collectors and arterials.