Bill Text: CA AB529 | 2011-2012 | Regular Session | Amended

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

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Bill Title: Vehicles: speed limits: downward speed zoning.

Spectrum: Bipartisan Bill

Status: (Passed) 2011-10-07 - Chaptered by Secretary of State - Chapter 528, Statutes of 2011. [AB529 Detail]

Download: California-2011-AB529-Amended.html

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BILL NUMBER: AB 529	AMENDED
	BILL TEXT

	AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY  MAY 3, 2011
	AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY  MARCH 24, 2011

INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Gatto
   (Coauthor: Assembly Member Smyth)

                        FEBRUARY 15, 2011

   An act to amend Section 21400 of the Vehicle Code, relating to
vehicles.



	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   AB 529, as amended, Gatto. Vehicles: speed limits: downward speed
zoning.
    Existing law requires the Department of Transportation, after
consultation with local agencies and public hearings, to adopt rules
and regulations prescribing uniform standards and specifications for
all official traffic control devices and setting of speed limits.
Existing law makes it a crime for a driver to fail to obey a sign or
signal, defined as regulatory in the California Manual on Uniform
Traffic Control Devices (Manual), or a Department of Transportation
approved supplement to that manual.
   This bill would require the Department of Transportation to revise
the Manual, as it read on January 1, 2012, to  allow
  require the department or  a local authority to
round speed limits down to within 10 kilometers per hour or 5 miles
per hour of the 85th-percentile speed of free-flowing traffic
 in cases in which the speed would otherwise be rounded up,
except that in those cases the local authority would be prohibited
from petitioning the department to reduce the speed limit by an
additional 10 kilometers per hour or 5 miles per hour  .
 The bill would allow, in cases where the speed limit needs to be
rounded up to the nearest 10 kilometers-per-hour or 5 miles-per-hour
increment of the 85th-percentile speed, the department or a local
authority to decide to instead round down the speed limit to the
lower 10 kilometers-per-hour or 5 miles-per-hour increment, but then
the department or a local a   uthority would be prohibited
from reducing the speed limit any further for any reason. 
   Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes.
State-mandated local program: no.


THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

  SECTION 1.  Section 21400 of the Vehicle Code is amended to read:
   21400.  (a) (1) The Department of Transportation shall, after
consultation with local agencies and public hearings, adopt rules and
regulations prescribing uniform standards and specifications for all
official traffic control devices placed pursuant to this code,
including, but not limited to, stop signs, yield right-of-way signs,
speed restriction signs, railroad warning approach signs, street name
signs, lines and markings on the roadway, and stock crossing signs
placed pursuant to Section 21364.
   (2) The Department of Transportation shall, after notice and
public hearing, determine and publicize the specifications for
uniform types of warning signs, lights, and devices to be placed upon
a highway by a person engaged in performing work that interferes
with or endangers the safe movement of traffic upon that highway.
   (3) Only those signs, lights, and devices as are provided for in
this section shall be placed upon a highway to warn traffic of work
that is being performed on the highway.
   (4)  Control devices or markings installed upon traffic barriers
on or after January 1, 1984, shall conform to the uniform standards
and specifications required by this section.
   (b) The Department of Transportation shall revise the California
Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, as it read on January 1,
2012, to  allow a local authority to round speed limits down
to within 10 kilometers per hour or 5 miles per hour of the
85th-percentile speed of free-flowing traffic in cases in which the
speed would otherwise be rounded up, except that in those cases the
local authority may not petition the department to reduce the speed
limit by an additional 10 kilometers per hour or 5 miles per hour. If
the manual requires the local authority to round down the speed
limit, the local authority may petition the department for an
additional 10 kilometers per hour or 5 miles per hour decrease.
  require the Department of Transportation or a local
authority to round speed limits to the nearest 10 kilometers per hour
or 5 miles per hour of the 85th percentile of the free-flowing
traffic. However, in cases where the speed limit needs to be rounded
up to the nearest 10 kilometers-per-hour or 5 miles-per-hour
increment of the 85th-percentile speed,   the Department of
Transportation or a local authority can decide to instead roun 
 d down the speed limit to the lower 10 kilometers-per-hour or 5
miles-per-hour increment, but then the Department of Transportation
or a local authority may not reduce the speed limit any further for
any reason.