KHOU 11 Investigates found the city is not following its own rules in 11 locations around town where posted speeds don’t match what’s on the books.
HOUSTON — If you recently got a speeding ticket in the City of Houston, you just might be in luck.
That’s because posted speed limits at 11 locations in Houston don’t match local ordinances, according to a KHOU 11 Investigation.
Sections of Memorial Drive, a popular route into and out of downtown, are incorrect. Eastbound at Crestwood, the speed limit is 35, but the city ordinance – Houston law – lists that zone at 40 mph. Westbound, there’s another mismatch near Detering Street. The sign says 40 mph, but it’s 50 on the books.
“It’s just wrong. It’s not a valid sign,” veteran traffic lawyer Paul Kubosh said. “Therefore, the case should be dismissed.”
Many of the problem spots were familiar to Kubosh, like two locations on North Eldridge Parkway. At Addicks Dam Road, a sign showed 35 mph, while over the Addicks reservoir and at Clay Road, other signs showed 40 mph. However, two separate city ordinances overlap each other in that area. One said the speed limit is 50 and the other says 40.
“Those tickets will end up being dismissed,” Kubosh said. “The (prosecutor) has to prove the speed limit beyond a reasonable doubt. And if you’ve got overlapping speed zones without ultimate speed limits, then you’re going to have a reasonable doubt as to what the speed limit is.”
The other problematic speed limits can be seen on the map above or by clicking here. Along with Memorial Drive and North Eldridge, those bad speed zones include stretches on Elysian, Fountain View, Rogerdale, the South Freeway service road and about a mile stretch of West Alabama in Upper Kirby.
There, a sign at West Alabama and Timmons read 30 mph last week, but the speed limit should be 35, according to city ordinance and Ian Hlavaceck, a managing engineer with Houston Public Works.
“We concur with your analysis. They do not align with the city ordinance that sets the speed limits,” Hlavaceck said. “There’s multiple levels of review of signage that goes in, and sometimes it’s missed. We do work to correct them as soon as we know about them.”
But the city hasn’t always corrected these issues as soon as they were brought to their attention. KHOU 11 Investigates exposed the same issue eight years ago, identifying a total of 17 problematic speed zones. They included incorrect signs on parts of West Alabama, Fountain View, two parts of Memorial Drive, Rogerdale and Broadway.
Then-Mayor Sylvester Turner thanked KHOU for bringing the issue to the city’s attention, and former Public Works Director Carol Haddock promised, “we’re going to bring an ordinance to council and make sure they all match.”
But the city never followed through to fix six of those problem 17 locations.
“It’s not what we consider acceptable going forward,” Hlavacek said. “I don’t know why they weren’t rectified in the past, but we take ownership of them, and we intend to fix them as soon as we can.”
This time around, the city appears to be keeping its word. A day after KHOU interviewed Hlavaceck, the signage was finally corrected on West Alabama Street.
Houston Public Works also has replaced the signs on Elysian and Fountain View to reflect the correct speed limits.
