By Williams                                            H.B. No. 377
         76R524 KLA-D                           
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to the authority of the commissioners court of a county to
 1-3     alter speed limits on county roads.
 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-5           SECTION 1.  Section 545.355(a), Transportation Code, is
 1-6     amended to read as follows:
 1-7           (a)  The commissioners court of a county, for a county road
 1-8     or highway outside the limits of the right-of-way of an officially
 1-9     designated or marked highway or road of the state highway system
1-10     and outside a municipality, has the same authority to increase
1-11     prima facie speed limits from the results of an engineering and
1-12     traffic investigation as the Texas Transportation Commission on an
1-13     officially designated or marked highway of the state highway
1-14     system, and may declare a lower speed limit of not less than 20
1-15     [30] miles per hour on a county road or highway to which this
1-16     section applies, if the commissioners court determines that the
1-17     prima facie speed limit on the road or highway is unreasonable or
1-18     unsafe.  The commissioners court may not modify the rule
1-19     established by Section 545.351(a) or establish a speed limit of
1-20     more than 60 miles per hour.
1-21           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-22     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-23     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-24     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
 2-1     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
 2-2     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
 2-3     passage, and it is so enacted.