Nope. Section 22348 says "Notwithstanding subdivision (b) of Section
22351, a person shall not drive a vehicle upon a highway with a speed
limit established pursuant to Section 22349 or 22356 at a speed
greater than that speed limit." It is thus illegal to speed.
Section 22351-a states "The prima facie limits are as follows and
shall be applicable unless changed as authorized in this code and, if
so changed, only when signs have been erected giving notice thereof:"
and gives certain default limits, such as 25 MPH "on any highway other
than a state highway." And, section 22349 states "{a) Except as
provided in Section 22356, no person may drive a vehicle upon a
highway at a speed greater than 65 miles per hour.
"(b) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person may drive a
vehicle upon a two-lane, undivided highway at a speed greater than 55
miles per hour unless that highway, or portion thereof, has been
posted for a higher speed by the Department of Transportation or
appropriate local agency upon the basis of an engineering and traffic
survey."
There are other speed-limit laws in the section which set limits for
certain types of roads.
All statutory text from
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/vc/vctoc.htm
Thus, where speed limits are established by law, exceeding those speed
limits is a violation of the law. Section 22350 clearly exists to
require drivers to drive at a safe speed given the prevailing driving
conditions. For example, on a highway that has a speed limit set at 70
mph, you can be cited for speeding per section 22350 even if you're
only going 70 if it's nighttime, foggy, and there's a driving
rainstorm. Section 22350 is not a "get-out-of-speeding-free" card.
By your interpretation of the law, section 22350 would make all of the
other specific speed limit laws redundant and of no effect. That's not
a correct way to interpret statutes.
Finally, there is no "CVC22351-5".
- geoff
