PCH speed cameras ticketing drivers — but in Long Beach, not Malibu Play

If you hear reports about speed cameras writing tickets on Pacific Coast Highway, they're true — just not in Malibu. The new speed cameras are in Long Beach, 50 miles down the coast.

That section of PCH in Long Beach is vastly different from PCH up here. It's a commercial strip in the middle of town with cross streets every block on both sides, and importantly, a 35-mile-per-hour speed limit. Long Beach just got a special bill signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom to allow two speed cameras along PCH there, in addition to 18 other speed cameras elsewhere in the city.

In Long Beach, PCH accounts for about a fifth of the city's traffic deaths, despite covering less than 1% of the city's roadways. This year Long Beach has recorded 37 fatal crashes; seven have been on PCH, and five pedestrians were killed.

Unlike Long Beach, the Malibu speed cameras are mired in legal difficulties. The confusing jumble of speed limits in the eastern part of Malibu has led to major legal issues. State law prohibits a city from using radar to issue speeding tickets unless the speed limit is set to the average speed traveled by 85% of vehicles — a rule meant to prevent speed traps.

Malibu was able to drop the speed limit to 25 miles an hour because of the emergency caused by the fire. But whether that emergency is still in existence, and whether judges will actually convict people of speeding, is very much an open question. Traffic in the 25 zone in Malibu is routinely observed moving at more than 40 miles an hour — at times more than the old 45-mile-per-hour limit, sometimes more than 50.

The city is now conducting a new speed radar survey, which may force the existing speed limit to be radically increased. And there are two of these new radar speed cameras right in the middle of that zone. All 10 speed cameras in Malibu are in limbo until this gets ironed out.