The state sets standards on speed limits and rightfully so

Regarding Lynn Road speed limits--in California speed limits are required to be set at the speed that 85 percent of the drivers on that stretch of roadway drive at or below.

Contrary to the impression some tried to give, it is not based on what someone in Sacramento thinks. But the thing that needs to be addressed is the fact that the 85th percentile is not an arbitrary number. It's unfortunate that the state vehicle code describes a street with a posted limit below the 85th percentile as a "speed trap," because the main reason for the law is safety.

The 85th percentile is based upon many decades of experience and research by traffic engineers and other traffic experts as the safest speed for traffic on a roadway that doesn't have hidden dangers, things that can't be seen by the driver.

As traffic experts know, and our City Council members should know--and if they don't know, the answer is no farther than down the hallway to the city's traffic engineers--changing the posted speed limit below the 85th percentile will not result in a reduction of actual speed on the roadway. The traffic experts also know that setting speed limits below the 85th percentile results in increased accident rates.

Furthermore, Thousand Oaks has firsthand experience that that is also true even when speed limits are increased. After Thousand Oaks was required to increase speed limits by at least 5 mph on dozens of roads because they were posted below the 85th percentile, the actual speeds did not increase by more than 1 mph.

What this illustrates is that local residents and local elected officials don't know better than the people in Sacramento--the people who understand the reason for setting speed limits using the 85th percentile standard.

This is a case of residents demanding an action because they don't know what they don't know, and elected officials and those that pander to them not telling the truth.

I guess a local politician would rather tell his constituents that he tried to do what they wanted but the bad guy in Sacramento wouldn't let him.
Louis Goldsman
Newbury Park