This ‘n That…………..need for speed(ing)
Ya Gotta Love It
CalTrans is the California agency for highways, byways, and streets named and maintained by the state. For example, State Highway 178 meanders generally east and west across Kern and San Bernardino counties from Bakersfield past Lake Isabella all the way to Trona.
A two-mile stretch of the highway is shared by N China Lake Boulevard in the community of Ridgecrest, California. I live just outside the Ridgecrest city limits.
Just recently CalTrans posted public notice that it intends to increase the speed limit on the northern mile of this section of highway from the current 35-MPH to 45-MPH.
Now, one would expect such a step to be based on some sound engineering safety study. Not so in this case. Instead, the increase in speed looks like it is based on the lack of police enforcement of the existing speed limit.
CalTrans did a survey of traffic and found that automobiles were being driven an average of 45- to 50-MPH on that stretch of roadway. Ergo, the speed limit should be higher.
Let’s face it – the real reason people are driving 45-50 there is because everybody knows you can get away with an extra 5-10 cheat above the posted speed. Everybody does that…. Well, not me, of course. I always obey the posted speed limit.
You know dang good and well, that as soon as the new signs go up, traffic will zoom down the street at 50-55 MPH. Probably a good thing the community hospital is located around the mid-point of that stretch.
Remember when the highway speed went back to 65 from 55? Someone close to me said he would never, never EVER cheat – 65 was for him plenty fast enough. I guess when the California Highway Patrolman wrote him that ticket for doing 80 a couple months later, the CHP was just picking on him.
From the GOG’s desk………….
A Freelance Writer's Blog 
I was on a road trip recently with my nephew, and he had a book called “Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)”. It was very interesting. Reading a chapter on merging when a lane is closing (as for construction), I just had to laugh and think “Yes! That’s exactly what goes through my head!” You’d be surprised at how much thought has gone into such things as the placement and wording of signs, or the studies they have done on driver behavior. I swear, it should be its own branch of Psychology. I’ve always been an “early merger”, but I think the book has convinced me to be a “late merger”.
As for N China Lake Blvd, I think you’re right. As soon as they raise the speed limit, traffic speeds will rise correspondingly. But that’s a pretty wide road there, maybe it warrants a higher limit.