If Franz Kafka and Lewis Carroll somehow collaborated to draft traffic regulation statutes, their work product could not be any more chaotic, absurd, or unknowable than IC 9-21-5-11 pertaining to (temporary) worksite speed limits. My recent weekday road trip to the downstate funeral of a cousin forced me to traverse mile after mile after mile of “work” zones (mostly on I-65 and State Road 37) occupied by relatively few workers. All or nearly all the “work” zones featured the familiar orange barrels and signs dictating a reduced speed. A few of the zones had signs indicating a reduced speed limit only when lights were flashing. What of the other zones? Does the absence of workers make any difference?
IC 9-21-5-11 authorizes the Indiana Department of Transportation, the Indiana Finance Authority, or a “local” authority to “establish” temporary maximum speed limits “in the vicinity of a worksite,” with the requirement of posting signs “notifying the traveling public” of such temporary reduction of the maximum speed. Accordingly, a reduced worksite speed limit requires some (unspecified) official action of an authorized authority and a sign. I checked the INDOT web site for any list of its “established” worksite speed limits and found none. Given the number of “local authorities” in the State, I made no effort to find online designations of worksite speed reductions “established” by them.
IC 9-21-5-11(c) provides that a worksite speed limit may be enforced only if: workers are present in the immediate vicinity¹; or (otherwise) the “establishing authority determines that the safety of the traveling public requires enforcement of the worksite speed limit.” So some worksite speed limits apply part of the time (only when workers are in “the immediate vicinity”) while other worksite speed limits apply all of the time, whether or not workers are present. How can you tell the difference? You can’t. As you motor down the highway and encounter a work zone without workers there is no means of determining whether the “establishing authority” (whatever that may be) has made a determination that your safety requires that you reduce your speed. Do the “establishing authorities” even make such determinations? If so, can such determinations be found in an available public record?
What the unfortunate motorist can do when ticketed in a work zone devoid of workers is to insist that the prosecution provide evidence of the determination of an “establishing authority” that public safety requires a full-time speed reduction. A prosecution for speeding in a work zone is an infraction such that a defendant may employ civil discovery techniques.
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¹The CLB recognizes that “present in the immediate vicinity of the worksite” is an impossible standard. Beyond the inherent vagueness of “immediate vicinity” there is the phenomenon of workers being present in a single hundred yard stretch of a 10-mile work zone. According to the statutory standard your speed limit could be dictated by the presence of workers who are present miles ahead of you.
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