No plans to widen 5 Freeway through Camp Pendleton
QHi, Honk! Curious minds want to know what gives with the traffic on the 5 Freeway south of San Clemente to anywhere in San Diego County. It used to be bad only on Saturday mornings in the summertime. Now it seems like there’s never a time without stop-and-go traffic to about Oceanside. Worst on Saturdays and bad most Friday afternoons. Northbound is bad on Sundays. — Teresa Hagel, Laguna Niguel
AThe ol’ Honkmobile makes that trek often on Saturdays, and although the handsome devil behind the wheel enjoys glancing out at Camp Pendleton and the magnificent Pacific, it does tend to be a slog.
Hayden Manning, a Caltrans spokesman based in San Diego, says weekend traffic gets heavier this time of year and that stretch is absorbing even more vehicles with the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions.
Honk has learned over the years that traffic can be clogged more than you would think by downstream trouble. Highway 78, which veers east off of the 5 Freeway in south Oceanside, might be in play here.
“We have noticed more vehicles traveling on southbound I-5 to eastbound SR-78, one of the most congested freeways in (San Diego) county,” Manning told Honk in an email. “There is a project to widen SR-78 … in the next few years.”
Hopefully that helps commuters a lot, Teresa, because …
“There are no current plans to widen I-5 through Camp Pendleton,” Manning said.
QDear Honk: With all due respect, I was very surprised and disappointed in your answer in last week’s column about the highway speed limit when no signs are posted. I’m a 75-plus-yearold driver and I’ve always known about the prima facie speed limit in California. It’s one of the first things I picked up when I was learning to drive after I got a permit at age 151/2. I also remember this law being reduced to 55 mph on highways nationwide during the oil crisis of the ’70s. I fear this demonstrates another failure of driving schools, etc., in the education of new drivers. Which makes me wonder: Is the prima facie law mentioned in the California Driver Handbook?
— Conrad Neuamnn,
Huntington Beach
AWell, Conrad, get in line — Mrs. Honk was disappointed with the ol’ Honkster last week, too, saying the salmon was overcooked.
Conrad is referring to Honk saying he had no idea how a motorist would know what the speed limit is on a divided highway without posted speed limit signs. He did go on to say that he looked into it, and a California Highway Patrol officer who doubles as a spokesman told him it is 65 mph in the Golden State for vehicles without trailers.
No, Conrad, the Driver Handbook in its 117 pages does not mention this law, although it does say that if there aren’t signs on a two-lane, undivided highway, the speed limit is 55.
What broached the question was the lack of signs on Los Patrones Parkway in south Orange County. The way Honk (clearly) sees it, if the CHP or any other agency is going to cite someone for speeding, or for going too slow, the driver deserves to see a speed limit sign every so often.
As mentioned here two weeks ago, several years after putting in Los Patrones the county is going to go ahead and put in some speed limit signs out there in the next month or two; it already had consulted with the CHP and determined some motorists might in fact be baffled.
FULL DISCLOSURE >> Honk surveyed his editor and Mrs. Honk on what they thought the speed limit is on divided highways, and they both said 65. But Honk thinks they just took half-court shots that happened to fall into the bucket.