Higher Fines and More Enforcement would Reduce Speeding By Pierluigi Oliverio, San Jose Mercury News, July 31, 2007

What happened last week in the Almaden Valley was a tragedy. Two teenage boys at the beginning of their lives and a married couple holding hands on their nightly stroll - all dead, just like that.

My first reaction, sadness, soon turned to outrage. What is going on when a couple walking along their neighborhood street are wiped out by a speeding car? It's time to do something about a problem that is plaguing our communities. Make the punishment fit the crime of speeding. Some drivers may think this is trivial, but we know speeding can be deadly.

This is not about "other" people. I've caught myself going over the speed limit on neighborhood streets. Admit it, you have, too. We are the lucky ones; our speeding has not caused a serious accident. At least, not yet.

Every day my office at San Jose City Hall receives calls about speeding through neighborhoods, and every day we call the city's Department of Transportation to see what we can do. We're told that state law limits cities' ability to lower speed limits or increase fines. In addition, we are told that because of San Jose's budget shortfall, there is little money to provide traffic calming measures. Although I understand these reasons, I can't accept them without trying to work within the system to make improvements. I believe that San Jose can and needs to do better.

I propose the following:

1.) Increase the fine for speeding on a neighborhood street. Let's work to change state law to allow cities to raise the fine. Let's work with our local members of the state Senate and Assembly to sponsor a bill to achieve this objective. Many of us will not park in a handicap spot or use the carpool lane unlawfully because of the high fine that is attached. If you started to hear that co-workers or neighbors had received $500 fines for speeding on a neighborhood street, it would make you pay attention. Over time, it would change the behavior of drivers.

2.) Hire traffic officers. These officers would only give tickets to those who violated traffic laws, including speeding and running stop signs or lights. The traffic officers would not respond to any other calls. I believe that they would not only pay their own salaries from the fines, but they would create revenue for the city. For example, the money that is generated from the fines could be used to hire more traffic officers and for traffic calming purposes such as to pay for speed humps, stop signs, and "roundabouts" (a large circle that is placed within the middle of an intersection so that cars need to go slowly around the circle; many historic neighborhoods have roundabouts).

3.) Establish a San Jose Traffic Calming Commission. The city had a traffic calming committee that met from February 2001 to June 2001 to evaluate policies, criteria and tracking systems of existing traffic calming programs, and make or recommend changes as necessary. I am not one to want more bureaucracy; however, I think that establishing a traffic calming commission in San Jose would be beneficial. The commission would include council members and residents of San Jose and would be charged with similar duties as was the traffic calming committee in addition to researching how other cities handle speeding issues.

I did not know the married couple or the teenage boys who died in Almaden last week. I do know that this incident should serve as a wake-up call to all of us. Drivers need to take responsibility and obey the speed limit. When they don't, there should be a high price to pay.