Here is an interesting question. Let’s say you have a road, 4 lanes, 2.13 miles in length. The road is fairly wide and straight (as well it should be, only being 2.13 miles long). Now on that road we are going to put two Elementary Schools and one large water park, with huge grass areas for children and families to play and picnic. The rest of this road is going to be framed by family housing, with children playing in the yards and dogs running about on sunny days.

How fast should you be driving down this road?

I’m not sure what your answer was, but I’ll bet it wasn’t 50 mph. However, that is the answer the Traffic and Safety Commission were proposing at the meeting on Jan 10th to the Carlsbad City Council, and if four concerned citizens didn’t show up to that meeting, that proposal might have been listened to, instead of being sent back.

You might ask yourself, why only four showed up? That part is easy, none of the residents in that area were informed of the meeting, or the proposed speed limit. In fact the only warning issued was from the North County Times the day before.

Here’s an interesting part as well. The way the Traffic and Safety Commission came up with 50 mph is from measuring the existing traffic speeds in two areas on this 2.13 mile long stretch of road. A road which at the time had nothing on it but some construction, and no posted speed limit, no cross traffic or possible dangers anywhere along the stretch of wide lane black top. I would drive 50+ too, especially if I had been down it more than once.

Poinsettia Lane, however, is not going to remain in this condition for very long. Already built or being built are Carlsbad’s Poinsettia Elementary School and San Marcos’ Carrillo Elementary School. Also under construction is the Alga Norte Community Park and Aquatics Center. Using existing speed safety measurements based on the average driver (and don’t get me started on the average driver’s ability to decide what is safe or not) seems less than perfect for the possible ways of determining a safe speed for this area.

The Council thought so as well and sent the report back asking for it to be reviewed.

Mayor Bud Lewis, while seeing nothing wrong with sending the report back for review, did mention that there are sometimes problems with enforcing the speed limits in the future. Apparently setting lower speed limits than the reports from the Traffic and Safety Commission suggest violates the state speed trap laws. Once the suggested speed is given in these reports, if the city places the limit at a lower rate, then tickets will be overturned and judges could possibly order police not to enforce any traffic violations on the street until the limit is set according to the suggestions of the report.

Whether this would happen in this case or not, where the dangers to children and the public are clearly at a much higher risk from passing cars is hard to tell. I do know that the Traffic and Safety Commission should take a very hard look at their procedures in this case, because the next meeting isn’t going to be as empty as the last.

Posted by Glenn Hefley in Example-News Story