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Ms. Hosterman said the 85th percentile speed, oran known as the critical speed, is the speed at or below which 85 percent of the motorists drive; 15 percent of the people drive faster than the 85th percentile and 85 percent of the people drive at or below it. She thought a lot of motorists know that they can probably get away with driving five or six miles an hour over the posted speed limit without hazarding a stop. She can't help but think that once we bump those posted speed limits, the critical speed will likewise be bumped. She is not sure exactly who we are serving. She is also concerned about not just the questions that Mr. Brozosky had regarding the Mohr Elementary School area, but that in all of these areas there are driveways, residences and businesses, and those people now have to attempt to negotiate getting in and out of their respective properties with this increase in speed. She stated because the speed is raised, an individual driver's abilities to respond in an emergency situation is impacted. If we have a small segment of the population who are able to successfully challenge a speeding ticket, it is still a good deal of punishment to be stopped. The driver is usually in a hurry, they go through the process of being stopped, at least one or two people pass and recognize the car, and then you have to post bail and show up for a court appearance. For those who successfully challenge a ticket, they are going over quite a few hurdles to get to that point. Captain Mike Fraser explained that the Police Deparhnent will not stop and issue citations to motorists in areas that are not properly posted. The buffer that people think they have of 5 mph is not necessarily accurate. The proposal will allow the police to cite those that exceed speed limits. Studies have shown that when speed limits have been raised there truly isn't an increase of actual speed. The speed limits have been looked at for the past year and the police department concurs with raising the limits as recommended in the staff report. Mr. Knowles said there is a relationship between the police officers, the traffic engineers and the traffic commissioner. If tickets get dismissed, it damages the relationship. The officers are prioritizing the time spent on enforcement activity and they certainly want to be sure the citations will be upheld. As people are driving the streets, the speed limit sign is a piece of information that a driver takes in while driving. These studies are showing what the drivers do safely on a roadway as they process all of these conditions, not just the posted speed. Radar speed signs are only effective while they are in place and a few days after these are removed, everybody is right back where they were before because they are judging the safe speed on all of the other visual characteristics. The possible one to three mile per hour increase in actual travel speeds must be weighed against the benefits of greatly enhanced enforcement abilities. Staff is taking the position of enhancing the ability to enforce the speed limit. This is not in any way an attempt to encourage people to drive faster; it is to promote our ability to actually enforce the speed limits. It is not the driver going five miles over the limit that we are concerned about; it is the person going faster than that. It is now virtually impossible on some of the roadways to do this. Ms. McKeehan said she hoped it was clear from the presentations and the answers to the questions that this is not something the City looks forward to doing. We know the natural emotional reaction to this subject, but what is being asked is to have every tool possible to make the City as safe as it can possibly be. On roadways that we would like to bring the speed down, let us enforce it and at the same time we can look at traffic calming measures and other items to Pleasanton City Council 7 01/07/03 Minutes