[Talk-us] Speed Limit Validity in US Questions

[Bill Ricker]

On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 11:26 AM Anthony Costanzo <acjames28 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Also, crossing a jurisdictional boundary (city limit, county line, state
> line) will in many cases - but not all cases - legally cancel out a posted
> speed limit and also restore it to the local default, even if there is no
> sign marking the jurisdictional boundary, unless there is another speed
> limit sign immediately following the boundary.
>

Yes. And worse, the default may depend on not just the boundary, but whose
legal responsibility the road in question is, which may not be obvious from
signage.

E.g., the City of Boston (Mass., USA) has recently set a lower city-wide
speed limit of 25mph unless signed otherwise (in interests to reducing the
carnage done to pedestrians, cyclists, etc.), but that only applies to
*City* streets.
State-maintained thoroughfares (where primary jurisdiction for infractions
is Mass State Police and not BPD, and maintenance is on Metro.Dist.Comm.
(MDC; sort of a modern County substitute that was invented to have borders
of the emergent Metropolitan Statistical Area rather than the legacy
political counties of the settlers) or Mass DOT) would not be affected even
if they were unsigned (which they mostly aren't, they sign fairly
thoroughly).

Conveniently, the adjacent City of Cambridge agrees, so the speed limit on
the Mass. Ave Bridge (aka Harvard Bridge, despite landing at MIT!) is 25mph
on both halves, doesn't actually change mid-channel now, but the blinky
radar sign in the middle looks like it's changed there. :-D

In outlying districts in e.g. semi-rural/semi-suburban Maine, road
responsibility of even non-numbered roads shifts from State DOT to
Municipal at the Densely Settled or "Compact" line which typically results
in a lower posted speed limit anyway.

40 years ago (when last i read the new drivers handbook closely), the
default limits for unposted roads in Mass by state law were 20/30/40/50 --
School, Densely Settled (defined as driveway curb cuts less than XX ft
between), Sparsely Settled, Divided Carriageway or 4-lane etc. I can NOT
attest to that being current law however!

-- 
Bill Ricker
bill.n1vux at gmail.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/n1vux
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