CalTrans
Documents
http://www.dot.ca.gov
The California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) website includes
an electronic edition of their Traffic Manual - in fact, it is the online
edition that is the official version of the manual.
The Traffic Manual is the source of the controversial "Yellow
Change Interval" table.
From 1996 until 2002, the
Yellow Change Interval table published in the main portion of the
Traffic Manual was in increments of 5 kilometers
per hour. While the "metric" version of the table had been
revised/obsoleted by a memo issued April 1998 (available
online, in a Manual section called "New Policy"), until November 2002
the obsolete metric table remained in the main portion of the official
electronic edition of the Manual, often confusing viewers who did not
know it was necessary to check for revisions.
It is interesting when Cities' Registered Professional Traffic
Engineers, or the private legal specialists cities employ to prosecute
camera tickets, ask a court or the public to believe that when they installed their cameras they were not already aware of
an
April
1998 memo. (See Bakersfield as an example of this.)
1. As of
May 20, 2004, the current version of the table was on pages 4D-2 and
4D-27 at: http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/traffops/signtech/mutcdsupp/pdf/CA-Chap4D.pdf
Please note that on Jan. 26, 2005, the table was revised to refer to
Posted Speed instead of the previous column heading "Approach
Speed." See the discussion of this change, in Defect # 2 on the
Home page.
2. Manual Subsection 9-04.5, which was
revised
11-13-02 to contain the
current (April 1998) version of the table, was at:
http://dot.ca.gov/hq/traffops/signtech/signdel/chp9/chap9.htm#Section_4
However, as of 5-20-04 that location refers you to the new MUTCD
version of Section 9-04, which is located at the link given in 1.,
above.
3. You can view the original memo
(April 13, 1998) which enacted the current "Yellow Change Interval"
table at:
http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/traffops/signtech/signdel/policy/YellowChangeIntervals.pdf
However, if you use the memo in court, the judge may want to know where
you got it. Here are navigation directions to find the same document.
Go to website www.dot.ca.gov
In left hand column on "Home" page, click on "Manuals and Forms"
In "most requested" box, click on "Traffic Manual"
In left hand column, click on "New Policy"
Scroll down to "Memo - 4-13-98" and click on that link
4.
The obsolete
("metric") table is no longer available on the CalTrans website.
Here is a copy of it, from my files:
(for a larger copy, click on the image)
If you need information from CalTrans, call
CalTrans headquarters at (916) 654-5266.
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