Washoe court ruling hailed by speed limit critics

Brendan Riley

Wednesday, June 28, 2000 | 10:23 a.m.

CARSON CITY, Nev. - A Nevadan's fight against unreasonable speed limits has been stuck in the slow lane for years. Now, Chad Dornsife says a Reno judge's ruling may help his cause.

Dornsife, representing the Nevada Chapter of the National Motorists Association, said Tuesday the ruling by Washoe District Judge Connie Steinheimer "opens up the ability to challenge speed limits if they're not set properly."

Steinheimer's June 19 ruling favored Russell Gronert of Reno, who challenged a speeding ticket - his first - but lost at the Justice Court level. Dornsife helped Gronert with his District Court appeal.

Steinheimer stayed Gronert's conviction and ordered the lower court to determine the constitutionality of the speed limit law on which his ticket was based.

The judge noted that the Nevada Department of Transportation and the city of Reno had adopted a uniform standard that says a speed limit should be based on engineering and traffic investigations.

Gronert was ticketed for going 50 miles per hour on an outlying Reno-area road posted for 25 mph. He's revved up about Steinheimer's ruling, but doesn't know what to expect when he returns to Justice of the Peace Ed Dannan's courtroom July 27.

Dornsife is fired up too: "We went to look for a traffic engineering study but there was none," he says. "And it wasn't supported by a speed survey either. It had been lowered without any documentation."

"This is wonderful," he adds. "It's the first foot in the door for us, to make cities and counties follow the law. Limits shouldn't be set at the whim of politicians, where there's no data at all to support them."

Dornsife figures most of Nevada's highways are posted with limits that won't meet the standard mentioned in the court ruling, and many areas are known speed traps.

"Now, there is a mechanism in law to challenge these practices," the Zephyr Cove resident says.

If someone challenges a speed limit posting, Dornsife says prosecutors will have to verify that due-process standards have been followed and that the limit was set in line with nationally recognized engineering practices.