In February 27 Musings, Circling the News reported that Mike Bonin had announced that the City Council was making the city safer for pedestrians by lowering the speed limits on certain roads, including stretches on Palisades Drive.
While it’s true that excessive speed is a major cause of accidents, there certainly are other contributing factors, such as people who blow through stop signs and yellow lights, who make illegal turns and are distracted as they drive, or are impaired.
Given that the L.A. Police Department has suffered personnel cutbacks, CTN is also curious about how speeding will be enforced. We contacted the head of the Operations-West Traffic Bureau Captain Brian Wendling to ask about resources.
Wendling oversees a 121.8-square-mile area of Los Angeles that includes the Hollywood, Olympic, Pacific, West Los Angeles and Wilshire divisions. The area stretches from the 105 Freeway to Mulholland and from the Pacific Ocean to Normandy/Hoover, skirting around Culver City, Inglewood, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica.
In addition to investigating traffic collisions and traffic-related crimes, Wendling said his officers are assigned to one of five sections: the day watch, the mid-day watch, the complaint unit, the night-street racing unit and DUI.
He has only 30 police officers to cover the five sections, seven days a week, over a large area.
Wendling told CTN on Monday, “We keep getting asked to do more and more, but with fewer resources.”
CTN contacted Councilman Mike Bonin’s office on Monday and asked if that meant that more officers will be hired for traffic enforcement by the City. If he responds, we’ll update the story.
I believe Mike Bonin voted for ‘defunding’ LAPD? Correct? We have begun to feel the results of that mistake. Re train, strict hiring policies, not defund.
What ” stretches on Palisades Drive” will speed limits be lowered?
By how much?
What pedestrian usage and injury data is there for those stretches? (Shouldn’t we “follow the science?”)