Opinion | Lansing, please don’t hurt Michigan drivers with bad traffic laws

Michigan’s state legislators are spending the last months of this session making driving slower, more expensive, and more dangerous.  Before voting in the November election, drivers should ask candidates what they think about these bills to make life rough for Michigan motorists.

Michigan is the only state not to exchange traffic-ticket information with the other 49 states.  Now, Rep. Noble (R–Canton Twp.) wants Michigan to join the Driver License Compact, to make the Secretary of State record convictions in other states.  His HB 6011 passed the House almost unanimously.  This will assign points to your license for sometimes-dubious out-of-state convictions.  It will also let Michigan insurers discover the information and raise our premiums. Legislators failed again to get Michigan auto insurance rates under control, but they’re eager to make your premium reflect the ticket you got in a Florida speed trap.

Michigan’s traffic fines are doubled for tickets written in school zones, but that isn’t enough for Sen. Warren (D-Ann Arbor).  Her SB 1074 would double the fines again for speeding in school zones, and triple them for violations by more than 20 mph.  The bill may or may not be limited to the period within 30 minutes of the start and end of the school day. Fines could rise to over $500.  And the bill would deny access to “traffic school” attendance that masks license points from insurers, to make sure insurance companies get a larger cut of the take.

The latest reform to Michigan’s speed-limit law took effect in January, 2017, requiring a scientific basis for speed limits.  Legislators waited only a few months before trying to undo the reform and bring back speed traps. Rep. Hughes (R–Montague) and 6 others introduced HB 5385, which would let cities impose 25-mph speed limits on through streets, without posting any signs.  This bill got the unanimous support of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and is now in the House.

The worst bill of all is SB 477 (Sen. Zorn–R, Ida) which modifies the law requiring drivers to move over or slow down when passing an emergency vehicle.  Sen. Zorn would add utility, road-construction, and garbage trucks to the list, or any stopped vehicle with a flashing red, white, blue, or yellow light.  And drivers will have to move over if they can AND slow down, to 10 mph below the speed limit. Remember that the speed limit includes construction-zone limits of 60 or 45 mph, and the truck freeway limit of 60 mph.  Truckers must move into the fast freeway lane and slow to 50 mph, in between cars that may or may not be slowing down. Drivers must decide when the left lane is too crowded to move into, and hope that their judgment matches that of any watching cops, who may have a quota of $400 tickets to write for their township, city, or county.  This bill is a recipe for turning construction zones into high-dollar ticket traps, and for real danger as drivers try to simultaneously slow down and merge into one lane.

Lawmakers made one solid improvement to traffic law in 2018:  the requirement to pass bicycles with at least three feet clearance.  That law also makes it legal to violate the no-passing zone to squeeze by a cyclist, if it is safe to do so.  That act took effect in September, but on two-way streets only. A drafter’s error won’t make it effective on one-way streets for another year.

But that blooper is tiny compared with tearing up Michigan’s law on what to do when you meet a non-functioning traffic signal.  The time-honored rule was repealed that said whoever gets there first, goes through the dead signal first, and when two cars arrive simultaneously the one on the right goes first.  Now the law says you must stop and, “yield the right of way to all vehicles . . . approaching on an intersecting road.” (MCL 257.649)  In other words, you can’t go until everyone arriving later from all directions goes first, and neither can they.  Best stay home until the power comes back on. And if all these bills pass, you might not want to drive at all.

These bills are likely to move fast in the lame-duck session after the election.  Drivers should phone candidates’ offices and tell them that their votes will be determined by the legislators’ positions on these bills.