On the Angeles Crest Highway, from I-210 to the Mt. Wilson road, the speed limit is only 45 mph. That's about what the cars are doing on that stretch, anyway. The speed limit on the rest of the highway is 55 mph. The doubling of traffic fines for violations along the 45 mph section of highway covers speeding, crossing the double yellow line, failure to pull over to allow faster traffic to pass, following too closely, and failing to turn on headlights.
Since June of 1999, the California Highway Patrol has been engaged in a zero-tolerance policy in the 45 mph zone. A California Highway Safety Grant has produced intensive enforcement of all traffic laws on the Angeles Crest Highway along the 38-mile, specially-patrolled section. As a result, 1400 tickets were written from June, 1999, through May, 2000, up to ten times the previous amount. Most of the tickets were written on the weekends.
Since that time, deaths and injuries have been cut in half on this particular section of road, from an average of five deaths and 66 injuries per year from 1995-1999, to only 32 injuries in the following year. It won't surprise anyone who has driven the Angeles Crest Highway that motorcyclists were involved in 47% of the accidents from 1995 through1998, despite accounting for less than 3% of all registered vehicles.
I got pulled over today for the first time in more than fifteen years of riding motorcycles. I was descending the Angeles Crest westbound from Newcomb's Ranch in the company of three other sportbikers who were unknown to me. We were all being very law-abiding, and I wondered if that was because they had also seen the recent L.A.Times sportbike hit piece that was prominently displayed on the wall at Newcomb's.
We were still about two miles out of town, stuck in traffic behind a couple of cars, when a CHP motorcycle officer passed us heading up the hill. I didn't think about it because we were simply cruising down the hill, but our black-and-white friend quickly reversed his course, passed us, and waved us over to the side of the road.
As he stepped off of his bike the first words out of his mouth were, "Do you know what the speed limit here is?". We replied that it was 45 mph, and he said "Well, I clocked your whole pack at 50! Let's see all of your paperwork!" While he stood there with his hands on his hips, we looked at each other, shook our heads, and peeled off our helmets, revealing three heads of gray hair and one that had very little hair at all.
The cop said "Oh, geez..." rather quietly, and announced, "This isn't about speeding. You were going with the flow of traffic. I just need to check that you have the right paperwork and see that nothing's stolen." I restrained the urge to ask him how many cars he had pulled over that day, just to "check their paperwork."
We showed him our licenses, registrations and insurance papers. One guy in our group got a fix-it ticket for an after-market muffler. Everybody else was running stock pipes, and was let off scot-free! Then, we headed on down the hill with the knowledge that the CHP is now intent on chasing sportbikers off the Crest, and will be handing out tickets for any infraction they can find, no matter how minor.