BILL NUMBER: AB 529	AMENDED
	BILL TEXT

	AMENDED IN SENATE  JULY 11, 2011
	AMENDED IN SENATE  JUNE 16, 2011
	AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY  MAY 3, 2011
	AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY  MARCH 24, 2011

INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Gatto
   (Coauthors: Assembly Members Achadjian, Smyth, and Williams)

                        FEBRUARY 15, 2011

   An act to amend Section 21400 of the Vehicle Code, relating to
vehicles.



	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   AB 529, as amended, Gatto. Vehicles: speed limits: downward speed
zoning.
    Existing law requires the Department of Transportation, after
consultation with local agencies and public hearings, to adopt rules
and regulations prescribing uniform standards and specifications for
all official traffic control devices and setting of speed limits.
Existing law makes it a crime for a driver to fail to obey a sign or
signal, defined as regulatory in the California Manual on Uniform
Traffic Control Devices (Manual), or a Department of Transportation
approved supplement to that manual.
   This bill would require the Department of Transportation to revise
the Manual, as it read on January 1, 2012, to require the department
or a local authority to round speed limits down to within 5 miles
per hour of the 85th-percentile speed of free-flowing traffic. The
bill would allow, in cases where the speed limit needs to be rounded
up to the nearest 5 miles-per-hour increment of the 85th-percentile
speed, the department or a local authority to decide to instead round
down the speed limit to the lower 5 miles-per-hour increment, but
then the department or a local authority would be prohibited from
reducing the speed limit any further for any reason.
   Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes.
State-mandated local program: no.


THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

   SECTION 1.    It is the intent of the Legislature
that the changes made to subdivision (b) of Section 21400 of the
Vehicle Code by this act shall not alter any other provision of the
California Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices as it read on
January 1, 2012. 
   SECTION 1.   SEC. 2.   Section 21400 of
the Vehicle Code is amended to read:
   21400.  (a) (1) The Department of Transportation shall, after
consultation with local agencies and public hearings, adopt rules and
regulations prescribing uniform standards and specifications for all
official traffic control devices placed pursuant to this code,
including, but not limited to, stop signs, yield right-of-way signs,
speed restriction signs, railroad warning approach signs, street name
signs, lines and markings on the roadway, and stock crossing signs
placed pursuant to Section 21364.
   (2) The Department of Transportation shall, after notice and
public hearing, determine and publicize the specifications for
uniform types of warning signs, lights, and devices to be placed upon
a highway by a person engaged in performing work that interferes
with or endangers the safe movement of traffic upon that highway.
   (3) Only those signs, lights, and devices as are provided for in
this section shall be placed upon a highway to warn traffic of work
that is being performed on the highway.
   (4)  Control devices or markings installed upon traffic barriers
on or after January 1, 1984, shall conform to the uniform standards
and specifications required by this section.
   (b) The Department of Transportation shall revise the California
Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, as it read on January 1,
2012, to require the Department of Transportation or a local
authority to round speed limits to the nearest 5 miles per hour of
the 85th percentile of the free-flowing traffic. However, in cases
where the speed limit needs to be rounded up to the nearest 5
miles-per-hour increment of the 85th-percentile speed, the Department
of Transportation or a local authority  can  
may  decide to instead round down the speed limit to the lower 5
miles-per-hour increment, but then the Department of Transportation
or a local authority  may not   shall not 
reduce the speed limit any further for any reason.