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I received a citation for "flashing headlights" back in September 2010 from the Deland Police Department out generating revenue for the city one sunny Sunday morning. Sneaky mofos had one officer hiding behind a wall with a radar gun clocking motorists in a zone that changed speed limits abruptly from 45 mph to 35 mph. Had another 2 officers on opposite sides of the highway to catch the unwary. I had to miss 2 days of work to attend the arraignment (to plead not guilty) and then another day for the infraction hearing itself. Fortunately, I had personal leave time, otherwise those 2 days off work would have cost me over $250.00 I cited State v. Cason and eventually had my case dismissed, but it took until March 2011 to get a ruling.
1. The review about the law in 2005 came from a county judge. Its one Judge opinion and the ruling applies to the county... not to the entire state. Another Judge from another county probably will have a different interpretation. The officers in the county where the Judge's opinion took place may want to head the ruling... but otherwise it's probably fair game everywhere else.
2. The law looks pretty clear to me and I pasted it below. Basically it says specifically the only time you can have flashing/blinking lights and otherwise such is prohibited.
LAW: (7) Flashing lights are prohibited on vehicles except as a means of indicating a right or left turn, to change lanes, or to indicate that the vehicle is lawfully stopped or disabled upon the highway or except that the lamps authorized in subsections (1), (2), (3), (4), and (9) and s. 316.235(5) are permitted to flash.
3. Communication is protective speach but this case goes beyond that. Its a matter of safety. Flashing lights isn't the only driving communication restricted. Horns, for example, are to be used for emergencies... not while waiting in the driveway for your friend. Headlamp flashing and horn use is restricted... so is texting while driving (at least it is in California).
4. The idea that Cops should be out in the open to slow people down sounds good but its faulty logic. Warnings don't slow people down... its the fear of a citation. Studies have shown that citations work, not warnings. Ask yourself how many times have you been speeding, see a cop and slow down, and then speed again as soon as the cop has left? Once you get a speeding ticket... trust me... you probably will drive the speed limit for a while to avoid getting another ticket.
5. People don't want citations... they never will. But the fact is THATS what police do because it works. If they didn't give tickets our freeways and streets would be unsafe. Times ARE tough but following the highway laws are OUR responsibility. If we can't afford tickets... we probably shouldn't be breaking the law.
[FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3]Hello there,[/SIZE][/FONT]
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[FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3]Just got a quick few things to say.[/SIZE][/FONT]
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[FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3]1. The review about the law in 2005 came from a county judge. Its one Judge opinion and the ruling applies to the county... not to the entire state. Another Judge from another county probably will have a different interpretation. The officers in the county where the Judge's opinion took place may want to head the ruling... but otherwise it's probably fair game everywhere else.[/SIZE][/FONT]
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[FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3]2. The law looks pretty clear to me and I pasted it below. Basically it says specifically the only time you can have flashing/blinking lights and otherwise such is prohibited.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3] [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3]LAW: (7) Flashing lights are prohibited on vehicles except as a means of indicating a right or left turn, to change lanes, or to indicate that the vehicle is lawfully stopped or disabled upon the highway or except that the lamps authorized in subsections (1), (2), (3), (4), and (9) and s. 316.235(5) are permitted to flash. [/SIZE][/FONT]
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[FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3]3. Communication is protective speech but this case goes beyond that. Its a matter of safety. Flashing lights isn't the only driving communication restricted. Horns, for example, are to be used for emergencies... not while waiting in the driveway for your friend. Headlamp flashing and horn use is restricted... so is texting while driving (at least it is in California).[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3] [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3]4. The idea that Cops should be out in the open to slow people down sounds good but its faulty logic. Warnings don't slow people down... its the fear of a citation. Studies have shown that citations work, not warnings. Ask yourself how many times have you been speeding, see a cop and slow down, and then speed again as soon as the cop has left? Once you get a speeding ticket... trust me... you probably will drive the speed limit for a while to avoid getting another ticket. [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3] [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3]5. People don't want citations... they never will. But the fact is THATS what police do because it works. If they didn't give tickets our freeways and streets would be unsafe. Times ARE tough but following the highway laws are OUR responsibility. If we can't afford tickets... we probably shouldn't be breaking the law.[/SIZE][/FONT]
Now what did you go and do that for... mib918 took all that time and effort to explain why a statute that expressly and exclusively deals with types of equipment (nouns) somehow deals with the actions (verb) of drivers - completley refuting his argument with one simple statute.
Btw mib918, how can one act of flashing headlight be required (see fs 316.084(2)) when passing at night, and another one forbid it? Hint, 316.2397(7) does not apply to headlights.
By Steve Bousquet, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
In Print: Monday, September 12, 2011
TALLAHASSEE — Erich Campbell thought he was just being helpful the night he flashed his headlights on a busy Tampa highway to warn drivers of a police speed trap ahead.
The Florida Highway Patrol didn't appreciate the help. Officers pulled Campbell over and ticketed him.
Flashing your lights is illegal, they said.
Claiming no such law exists, Campbell, 38, of Land O'Lakes, got angry. Now he wants to get even: He filed a lawsuit on behalf of every other driver in Florida ticketed for the same violation over the past six years, accusing police of misinterpreting state law and violating motorists' free speech rights.
"This is a pattern, and it has mostly to do with frustrated police officers who feel they were disrespected," Campbell said. "When someone comes along and rats them out, they take offense to it."
Capt. Mark Welch, a spokesman for the FHP, cited a law that says "flashing lights are prohibited on vehicles" except for turn signals. Welch said he could not comment in detail because of the pending legal case.
Campbell and his attorney, J. Marc Jones of Oviedo, say police are misinterpreting a law that's meant to ban drivers from having strobe lights in their cars or official-looking blue police lights.
Soon after Campbell sued the state, the Highway Patrol on Aug. 29 ordered all troopers to stop issuing tickets to motorists who use headlights as a signal to other drivers.
"You are directed to suspend enforcement action for this type of driver behavior," said the memo from Grady Garrick, acting deputy director of patrol operations.
Campbell, a student at St. Petersburg College's Tarpon Springs campus, was driving his Toyota Tundra pickup on the Veterans Expressway in Tampa on a Monday night, Dec. 7, 2009, when he spotted two black state trooper cruisers parked in the median.
When he saw them, he said, he flashed his headlights a few times to alert motorists headed in the opposite direction.
"Within 60 seconds, they had me pulled over," Campbell said.
The ticket was for $115, but Hillsborough County Judge Raul Palomino dismissed it, and Campbell never paid a dime.
Campbell's lawsuit, filed in circuit court in Tallahassee, cites similar cases in Escambia, Osceola, Seminole and St. Lucie counties in which tickets for flashing were all dismissed by judges.
"In each of these examples," the lawsuit claims, "Florida courts properly found that (the law) does not prohibit the flashing of headlights as a means of communication," which the suit calls "a right of free speech."
The lawsuit estimates that 2,400 motorists in Florida were cited for headlight-flashing between 2005 and 2010. It asks a circuit judge to certify the case as a class action on behalf of those other motorists, which means that if the state loses, it could be forced to return a lot of money.
The state has not formally answered the lawsuit yet.
All of the defendants in the case report to either Gov. Rick Scott or Scott and the three-member Cabinet: highway safety chief Julie Jones; Col. David Brierton, chief of the Highway Patrol; and Ananth Prasad, secretary of the Department of Transportation.
Jones noted that a different section of law allows drivers to flash their headlights at night when they're passing another vehicle. "Visible blinking of the headlamps," is how the law puts it.
Asked about that apparent contradiction, the FHP's Welch said: "This is something that's going to be dealt with in the litigation. It's not something I can comment on."
Jones said he has been besieged with calls from motorists after the case got a burst of attention on several TV stations, and it has attracted attention in out-of-the-way places, too.
In an editorial headlined "Keep flashing legal," the Panama City News Herald said: "Campbell and other flashers actually encourage motorists to obey the law. Shouldn't that be FHP's only concern?"
After Campbell got his ticket, he did some research online and discovered Alexis Cason, 22, of suburban Orlando, who received a similar ticket in 2005, hired the same lawyer (Jones) and won her case.
"For me, this has to do more with the principle than the cost," Campbell said.
1. The review about the law in 2005 came from a county judge. Its one Judge opinion and the ruling applies to the county... not to the entire state. Another Judge from another county probably will have a different interpretation. The officers in the county where the Judge's opinion took place may want to head the ruling... but otherwise it's probably fair game everywhere else.
It's funny you should say that. The ruling from the 18th Circuit Court (Seminole County) Judge in 2005 certainly would apply to Seminole County. Yet, in a recent article published by the Orlando Sentinel, here's what Seminole County's spokesperson said:
Quote:
"Seminole deputies will keep on writing them as long as the statute is in effect, according to Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Kim Cannaday."
It would seem to me that you have a judge who says to the police in his county "You cannot use this statute, it's being misapplied". Then you have the cops that say take a flying leap. Yes, it's not state-wide, but it is a macro-view of the problem at hand.
Quote:
Times ARE tough but following the highway laws are OUR responsibility. If we can't afford tickets... we probably shouldn't be breaking the law.
I am 100% in agreement. How about tickets for laws that don't exist?
You quoted 316.2397. But what you failed to do, is put it into context. That statute is exclusively describing permitted (and prohibited) equipment... not actions. Actions (such as driving without lights, or with highbeams) are regulated in other parts of the 316 statutes.
For example, 316.083, which regulates when and how a driver should pass another. As quoted in previous posts in this thread, that statute, which DOES regulate driver actions, expressly requires an overtaking driver to "BLINK HEADLAMPS AT NIGHTTIME" to communicate intent to the driver being overtaken.
So, if this method of communication is acceptable for one message, but not for another (i.e. when government doesn't like the content), it's called censorship.
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