Kennewick's Ten-Mile-Per-Hour Traffic Crackdown
City council mandates strict enforcement of speed limits and lighting requirements for automobiles and motorcycles.
The story, cleaned up
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The city council has ordered Chief of Police Copeland to notify all automobile and motorcycle drivers that Kennewick has a speed limit, officially known as Ordinance No. 81. The ordinance fixes the limit of speed on the city streets at 10 miles an hour. It also provides that all autos must light both head and tail lights after dark and be equipped with horns or some other warning signal. Chief Copeland will post signs at the city limits on all the principal roads and will rigidly enforce the ordinance.
“Chief Copeland will post signs at the city limits on all the principal roads and will rigidly enforce the ordinance.”
As automobiles transitioned from luxury items to standard transportation, local authorities had to invent the rules of the road on the fly. The tension between early motorists and municipal control reflects the ongoing public debate about pedestrian safety, micro-mobility, and the regulation of new technologies on shared public streets.
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