Driving Change: 611 have hit 100 mph on PCH — in three months

By Michel Shane · Fri Nov 13 2026

Trips over 100 mph on PCH, in three months. 611. That's how many trips on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu topped 100 mph between February and April 2023, out of 1.24 million trips Michelin Mobility Intelligence sampled. Nearly half came between 8 at night and 6 in the morning. Almost a quarter came in broad daylight, between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., when the rest of us are on the road too.

A year later, after more enforcement, Michelin ran the count again and got 308. Half. Some of that is surely the extra patrols, but the study doesn't say how much, and I won't pretend it does. That count was early 2024, and I haven't found a comparable one published since.

The CHP does count the drivers it stops. From Jan. 1 to May 31 of this year, its Malibu task force wrote 796 speeding citations. Seven were for speeds over 100 mph. Those figures can't be compared to Michelin's as a rate because the years and methods differ. Michelin's data caught every trip in its sample whether or not anyone was watching. A citation needs an officer in the right place at the right second. Seven is what that system caught.

Las Flores Canyon shows what that looks like up close. "My kids and I are almost hit daily just trying to pull out of our driveway," Taylor Heinrich, a mother of two who has lived on Las Flores Canyon Road for five years, wrote to me. Residents have told the city the motorcycles come up from PCH around 11 at night. One night a deputy came just after 9 and stayed 19 minutes. It's the only officer Heinrich has seen on her road for speeding, and the motorcycles hadn't arrived yet.

After months of complaints, the city is about to install two radar speed feedback signs and speed bars there. The city says those signs also count cars and record their speeds, and that it will use the data to decide whether the road warrants more, including physical changes. Good. Publish the numbers. The data could show a deputy where to be, if anyone uses it.

Since 2010, 64 people have died on PCH in Malibu. The city's own study found that up to one vehicle in five went more than 10 mph over the limit at the camera sites, more than 1,000 a day at four of the five. We know where the danger is. The tools to cut it already exist, and most of them aren't here.

We have done things. Caltrans installed speed feedback signs and new pavement markings; 12 traffic lights on PCH now run in sync; the city pays for extra CHP patrols on top of the sheriff's deputies; and it bought lidar guns in 2024. The cameras start issuing warnings this month (fines follow once the required 60-day warning period runs out). None of that is worthless. But none of it can physically stop a driver who has decided to do 100.

Take the feedback signs, the tool Las Flores is about to get. The Federal Highway Administration tested them at 22 curves in seven states, and two years later average speeds at those curves were still about 2 mph lower. That's real. Then Wisconsin researchers followed drivers past a sign and watched speeds start climbing again within 300 to 500 feet. A sign protects a spot. It doesn't change how people drive for the next 10 miles.

The cameras will flash plenty; the testing proved that much. What I want to know is whether the flashes slow anyone down. San Francisco bothered to find out. After 18 months, the share of drivers speeding 10 mph or more over the limit was down 84 percent at its camera locations.

Los Angeles began switching on its cameras Oct. 26, and its City Council has authorized up to 125. Malibu needed its own legislative act to get five, because state law keeps speed cameras off state highways, and PCH is one.

Start with the cheapest tool there is. Waze shares traffic and road hazard information with governments for free, through a program called Waze for Cities. Caltrans joined in 2016. The City of Malibu has confirmed it isn't a partner. Malibu hasn't shown what Waze's information could tell us about PCH or our canyons. It should find out.

Scotland decided one camera wasn't enough. In 2014, it installed average-speed cameras on the A9. They time a car between two cameras, so slamming the brakes for a few seconds and flooring it again no longer works. South of Perth, authorities had recorded about 200 vehicles a day at 100 mph or more. In the first three months after installation, they recorded none at those monitoring points. When the RAC Foundation later looked at average speed cameras across Britain, adjusting for national trends, it found 36 percent fewer fatal and serious crashes where they went up. They aren't perfect (a driver can still sprint past 100 and finish a section under the average), and California's camera law doesn't even contemplate them. It's written around one camera at one spot, with a "Photo Enforced" sign no more than 500 feet ahead. Scotland has been doing this for twelve years.

Some drivers won't be reached by any sign or camera. In North Las Vegas, on Jan. 29, 2022, a man with a history of speeding violations ran a red light at 103 mph. Nine people died, including him and his passenger. The National Transportation Safety Board said Nevada had failed to deter his repeat offenses, and in November 2023 it went further, telling every state to find its repeat speeders and measurably cut repeat speeding.

Virginia answered. Since July 1, courts there can order certain convicted reckless drivers to use a GPS device that limits how fast their cars can go. If someone keeps proving they'll drive to kill, another ticket is not a response.

California had its chance this year. AB 2276, Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria's Stop Super Speeders Act, would have created a pilot in seven counties, including Los Angeles, requiring certain convicted dangerous drivers to use speed-limiting devices. Families for Safe Streets and Streets Are For Everyone fought for it. The Assembly Public Safety Committee passed it 9-0, and the Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee 15-0. On May 14, Appropriations held it. No floor vote. No pilot.

The Appropriations analysis pointed to money: multimillion-dollar costs, and a warning that the DMV's aging computer systems couldn't handle the change. Fine. Then find the money and fix the computers. Privacy and the cost to drivers also came up, and those are fair questions, which a seven-county pilot is meant to start answering. A DMV computer shouldn't be where a conversation about preventing deaths ends.

Malibu Canyon Road is next in line. Los Angeles County Public Works is studying 3.7 miles of it, from Piuma Road to Potter Road, and expects findings early next year. Washington state is the warning here. It used Michelin's data to decide where patrols should go, then saw a real drop in speed in only three of the eight targeted corridors, mostly because the extra officer hours never came. A map only works if someone shows up. So whatever the county builds on Malibu Canyon, I want a count of how fast people drive before and after, published where all of us can see it.

What I want from Malibu is simple: stop confusing activity with results. That starts small. Join Waze for Cities; it's free. Measure the extreme speeds, and publish what happens once the cameras are running. Find the fastest drivers in the canyons and put enforcement there. When the county opens its public map of Malibu Canyon Road, mark the spots that scare you (I'll share the link here). And ask Sacramento for permission to test what already works somewhere else.

We've counted 611 trips over 100 mph. We've counted 64 people dead on PCH since 2010. Virginia gave its judges a way to slow the worst drivers down. California couldn't get a seven-county pilot out of committee.

In 2015, the City Council approved a PCH safety study that listed 130 projects. In 2023, KBUU counted 115 of them as neither funded nor underway. Malibu Canyon is getting its study now, and I will read every page. I also know what a study is worth when no one is required to act on it.

Tonight, around 11, the motorcycles will come up Las Flores again.

 I can be reached at 21milesinmalibu@mail.com