AN OHIO woman has been begging officials for years to slow cars down on a busy two-lane road outside her assisted living community.
Rose Hammond, who lives along Mitchaw Road in Sylvania Township, warned leaders that the 55 mph speed limit was an accident waiting to happen.
An Ohio resident, Rose Hammond, said the 55 mph speed limit by her home was too high[/caption]
The homeowner has been asking her officials to reduce the speed limit in her neighborhood for years[/caption]
“What are you waiting for, somebody to get killed?” Hammond told officials, as reported by NBC local affiliate KSNT.
She said motorcycles roar past almost daily, shaking her windows and putting children and seniors at risk.
The stretch of road runs by her facility, a church, two schools, and a park packed with youth sports leagues.
But when Sylvania Township asked county engineers in March to see if the speed was too high, they got a shocking answer.
The study suggested the limit was actually 5 mph too low — meaning drivers were already moving faster than the posted signs.
That’s because of the “85% rule,” a decades-old guideline that sets speeds based on how fast most drivers naturally go.
The rule dates back to studies from the 1930s and 1940s but is still widely used to this day.
“If drivers think the speed limit should be raised, they can simply step on the gas and ‘vote with their feet,’” an old Institute of Transportation Engineers brochure once said, as per the Associated Press.
Critics argue this approach fuels a dangerous cycle.
“People speed, and then the speed limits will be ratcheted up to match that speed,” Jenny O’Connell of the National Association of City Transportation Officials told KSNT.
Her group has pushed a new system called “City Limits,” which takes into account pedestrians, cyclists, and crash risks instead of just driver behavior.
Leah Shahum of the Vision Zero Network said the federal government recently signaled that communities should stop treating the 85% rule as gospel.
“The 85th percentile should not be the Holy Grail or the Bible, and yet over and over again it is accepted as that,” Shahum told the AP.
Some cities are already making changes.
Madison, Wisconsin, launched a “20 is Plenty” campaign, dropping neighborhood speeds from 25 mph to 20 mph this summer.
How to fight a speeding ticket
According to a legally reviewed post, there are five effective strategies to fighting a speeding ticket if it was wrongfully issued.
- If pulled over and issued a ticket, drivers can argue or dispute a driver’s personal opinion. When issuing a speeding ticket, an officer is required to write their opinion and come to an “objective” conclusion. If the ticket was written based on that judgment, it can be contested. An example would be if you were going 75 mph in a 65 mph zone because others were traveling at the same speed, you could argue that it would be more dangerous to travel at 65 mph.
- You can dispute the officer’s presentation of evidence. If you were ticketed for something like running a stop sign or making an illegal u-turn, you can’t contest that if an officer saw you, but you can call things into court like eyewitnesses, diagrams, or photos.
- Argue that the ticket was issued by a “mistake of fact.” This is tricky, but a “mistake of fact” is a mistake made by a driver about a situation that was beyond their control, or if a driver legitimately did not know they were violating the law. For example, you were driving in two lanes because the lane markers were so worn down that you could not see them.
- You could say circumstances justified your driving. You could say you were speeding to pass a possibly drunk driver, or avoiding an accident by rapidly changing lanes. However, the argument won’t work if there’s proof you continued to speed after passing.
- Similar to the above, it could be argued that speeding was necessary to avoid harm. The key is to argue that if you weren’t speeding, you or someone else could have been harmed.
- Consult a traffic attorney, if all else fails. Many have free consultations to decide whether or not there’s a case.
Source: FindLaw
Seattle, Washington saw a sharp drop in serious crashes after lowering speeds in a pilot program seven years ago, according to Vision Zero.
But not everyone agrees with tossing out the old standard.
Jay Beeber of the National Motorists Association said drivers will always go with the flow of the road.
“It doesn’t really matter what number you put on a sign,” Beeber told the AP.
For now, Mitchaw Road will stay at 55 mph — despite Hammond’s pleas.
“I just get so discouraged,” she admitted.
