Ohio General Code of 1912, Section 12604

Whoever operates a motor cycle or motor vehicle at a greater speed than

eight miles an hour

in the business district and closely built-up portions of a municipality or more than

fifteen miles an hour

in other portions thereof or more than

twenty miles an hour

outside of a municipality,

shall be fined not more than twenty-five dollars, and, for a second offense shall be fined not less than twenty-five dollars nor more than fifty dollars.

Ohio has (at my last count) one dozen statutory speed limits. As I recall, the Uniform Vehicle Code recommends only two (2): 30-mph in urban districts, and 55-mph elsewhere, with adjustments to be made on the basis of traffic & engineering studies. Other States typically have fewer, e.g. Indiana's five (5) statutory speed limits.

As one legislative aide commented to me recently... the length of present Law is just proof the Legislature is in session too long, and tends to "make work" for itself by focusing on bureaucratic minutiae instead of public policy.

The next version of Ohio Law I found in the University of Dayton Law Library was dated 1926, but there was no annotation as to effective dates, so there may have been changes between.

Back to the Ohio NMA rootpage.

June 17, 1997