Cole County Commission changes speed limit on West Brazito Road

Cole County drivers will soon see a change to one rural road southwest of Jefferson City.

Tuesday, Cole County commissioners voted to raise the speed limit on West Brazito Road from 45 to 55 miles per hour.

A recent traffic study found 85 percent of drivers speed at least 10 miles over the current speed limit on the road.

Earlier this month, a woman who lives on West Brazito told ABC 17 News she was worried increasing the speed limit would be dangerous and encourage people to speed even more.

“They speed like maniacs,” Shirley Beck said.
They drive too fast. There’s too many residents that, you know, it’s just too dangerous to make it higher than 45.”

But Presiding Commissioner Sam Bushman told ABC 17 News he did not think it would change how people drive on the road.

“We didn’t increase it drastically,” Bushman said. “We just increased it–it’s still much less than the speed limit a majority of people are driving on that road.”

On some stretches of the road, Cole County Public Works found people drove 15 to 20 miles an hour over the limit.

“We had some that was 60 and excess of 68 on one of them,” Public Works Director Larry Benz said. “So you know what we’re trying to do is get the speed limit where a majority of the people drive it and feel comfortable.”

Benz said there was always the possibility of danger by increasing a speed limit, but said there was not a history of crashes on the road.

“We don’t see any accidents higher than normal the way people are driving now,” Benz said. “We do have a few accidents once in a while but no higher than any other road that we have.”

Commissioners also considered raising the speed limit on Bald Hill Road and putting a stop sign at the intersection of South Country Club and Mount Zion Road.

Commissioners tabled a vote on both decisions until public works crews can do traffic studies on the areas.