Starting Sunday, the speed limit will jump to 65 mph for most Los Angeles freeways - but the California Highway Patrol is warning motorists that the new limit will be strictly enforced.
Motorists will be free to drive 10 mph faster on such mainstays as the San Diego (I-405), Golden State (I-5) and Simi Valley-San Fernando Valley (I-118) freeways.California Highway Patrol Commissioner Dwight Helmick, acknowledging that the 55 mph speed limit is virtually ignored and that many drivers get away with driving 65 mph now, said the new speed zones will be stringently enforced.
"I can assure you that grace will no longer exist after the new signs are posted," Helmick said. "People better understand that's what the limit is and that's what they're going to be cited for."
The new mix of speed limits is part of a change taking place all over California and in at least eight other states following the repeal last month of the 55 mph national speed limit, first imposed in 1974 during the energy crisis.
Weather permitting, California Department of Transportation crews will begin raising the legal speed limit Sunday from 55 mph to 65 mph for 2,800 miles of freeway statewide, Caltrans Director James van Loben Sels announced Tuesday.
That includes nearly 400 miles of freeway in Los Angeles County.
Some traffic safety advocates and insurance organizations expressed alarm at seeing speed limits go up, predicting that it would increase the frequency and severity of highway accidents and ultimately drive up insurance rates.
Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, an alliance of consumer, safety and insurance groups, said raising the speed limit could result in more than 650 additional highway deaths statewide and nearly $2 billion in economic losses each year.
"This is what we were afraid of, that the states would move quickly without studying the consequences," said Katherine Hutt, a spokeswoman for the alliance. She said the timing of the decision was especially troubling.