Republican lawmakers are trying to gut the District of Columbia’s ability to enforce its traffic laws, taking aim at a relatively new no-right-on-red restriction and speed cameras.
They stashed provisions that would prohibit the city from funding enforcement of those traffic regulations into an appropriations bill Congress must pass before October, their latest effort to police traffic in the District. While most of them represent sprawling communities hundreds of miles away from the District of Columbia, they’re fully able to tinker with traffic policies in the nation’s capital, given their Constitutional jurisdiction over the city.
“I think no right on red is kind of dumb, don’t you?” said Rep. Jake Ellzey of Texas, a member of the House Appropriations Committee. He pointed to other places that don’t tend to have such restrictions. “I drive myself, and the no right on red and the traffic lights just drive me berserk.”