Editorial: Let the police chief set the speed
The speed limit on Sandy Beach Road should not be established by a referendum, or a public opinion poll. The police chief needs to set the speed based on hard facts, not from a volley of public comments.
In the name of public safety a few well-meaning souls have decided drivers cannot safely operate within the right-of-way of a paved, well lighted roadway designed to safely accommodate vehicles operating at 35 miles per hour. The State Dept. of Transportation built the road with a design speed of 40 miles per hour.
Wide, paved berms allow cyclists and pedestrians to safely navigate along the edges of the roadway.
For well over twenty years vehicles, pets and pedestrians got along just fine with the 35 mph limit. An impaired driver misusing alcohol caused the most recent accident on the roadway. A lower speed limit did not prevent this accident.
If police files were filled with vehicle accident reports, we would feel differently, but that is simply not the case. Speed limits should be established on the basis of engineered road designs and construction plus common sense.
Setting the Sandy Beach speed limit at 25 mph was an attempt to fix something that was never broken. Return the speed limit on Sandy Beach Road to 35 mph from 14th Street, to the curve in front of the new Bible Church. The lower speed limit has succeeded only in making lawbreakers out of otherwise law-abiding drivers.