Higher Fines, but Still No SUV Enforcement?

Friday, April 22, 2005, at 01:47PM

By Eric Richardson

Interesting to note that next Wednesday LA's City Council will consider a motion to raise the fines for operating a vehicle over 6000 lbs on restricted streets. Actually this motion, which Janice Hahn made last June but has taken some time working its way through the system, isn't to raise the fines per se, but instead to have the City Attorney draft an ordinance that would do so.

For first time offenders, the maximum fine shall be increased from $50 to $250, the second offense to be increased from $100 to $250, and the third and subsequent offenses be increased to a maximum $1,000.

It will be interesting to see if this passes without discussion of the fact that a lot of big SUV's are heavier than the 6000lb limit. This issue (and the non-enforcement of the law) was all the buzz last summer, and it seems it still is: CityBeat published this article just a few weeks ago. I don't really think SUV's should be banned from residential streets (though I do think they should pay extra to attempt to compensate for their additional wear on the roadway), but it just seems that if that's not the intent of the law, the law needs to be rewritten.