Ann Arbor News
Greatest increase to be set along a stretch of Washtenaw Avenue
Saturday, June 02, 2007
BY SUSAN L. OPPAT
News Staff Reporter
Coming soon to roads near you: higher speed limits.
The changes are the result of a new state law based on decades of studies that prove speed limits should be set to match the speed most drivers are already driving.
The most visible changes in Washtenaw County will come in the next few weeks on Main Street in Ann Arbor from M-14 to Huron Street, and on Washtenaw Avenue, Huron Street and Jackson Avenue.
The biggest speed limit bump is planned for Washtenaw Avenue, where the current limit is 35 mph from Stadium Boulevard to Brockman. The likely new speed limit is 45 mph, because a speed survey measured 85 percent of traffic traveling at or below 47 mph, according to State Police Lt. Gary Megge.
Matching speed limits with actual speeds "is the right thing to do, the fair thing to do,'' said Megge, who disagrees with ticketing random drivers for doing what nearly everyone else is also doing.
Safety is also at issue, Megge said. Studies show that matching speed limits to traffic flow reduces crashes. Megge cites national studies dating to at least 1941 that prove drivers traveling at the slowest speeds are 100 times more likely to be involved in a crash than drivers who travel with the pack - even if the pack is traveling above a posted limit.
"If you're on the highway, a car going 40 creates a bunch of surprises, conflicts, maneuvers and lane-changing,'' Megge said earlier this year at a meeting with area government and police officials to explain the speed law changes.
Megge took it on himself a few years ago to study speed laws in other states. Then he began pushing for enforcement of an existing Michigan law that sets speed limits based on the 85th percentile study - the speed the majority of drivers are traveling.
Under the new law, on roads where that study hasn't been conducted, municipalities are now supposed to use a new law that measures the number of access points - driveways and intersections - in a half-mile stretch of road. Megge and his supervisor, Michigan State Police Lt. Thad Peterson, are working their way around the state with the Michigan Department of Transportation, using the 85th percentile law to set speed limits on expressways and state trunk lines.
