Assembly Bill 766, introduced by Assemblyman Paul Krekorian at a press conference last week, stalled in the Assembly Transportation Committee meeting yesterday without coming to a vote. Streetsblog LA published an extensive report on this setback, giving Glendale Police Lieutenant Carl Povilaitis credit for traveling up to Sacramento yesterday to lobby for the bill.
Krekorian presented testimony in support of the kind of laws we need here in Glendale to crack down on bad drivers, while the California Highway Patrol, the Auto Club, and the Teamsters Union all opposed the bill and contested the “science” of the legislation, as Damien Newton of Streetsblog writes:
Krekorian testified that his bill would allow municipalities, provided they could show a clear danger to pedestrians, to not raise speed limits as a requirement to use radar as an enforcement mechanism. Instead, if the only thing that had changed on the road was the average speed of drivers then the municipality could hold the limit at it’s current speed. In other words, drivers wouldn’t be allowed to increase a speed limit by speeding. This basic fact, that under current laws unsafe drivers are rewarded with higher speed limits was never addressed again. In fact, the Teamsters seemed miffed that Krekorian didn’t support the goal of ever increasing speed limits as cars can go faster and faster into the future.
However, after the AAA of Northern California, Southern California Auto Club and Teamsters were done their testimony, questions about “the science” of Krekorian’s legislation were planted in the minds of the committee. That it is the opposite of scientific to only take the needs of one user group into account didn’t occur to most of the committee, because they’ve been brainwashed to think only of the drivers, who have a larger percent of the road share here in Los Angeles.
What a disappointment for Glendale. This city is both walkable and cyclable, but existing state laws make it difficult for local law enforcement to crack down on the bad drivers who put justifiable fear in the hearts of our pedestrians and cyclists and keep them in their cars.