Law OKs headlight-flashing warnings
Lawyer warns of other provisions
So have you been out riding or driving and an oncoming car you see is flashing their headlights at you and you don’t have your high beams on? Well it might not have been because they were trying to tell you that you had your high beams on it may have been to warn you that there is a cop up ahead.
In some states if you get caught doing this there are considerable fines.
Florida has passed a new law legalizing the practice. But beware, there are still loopholes.
A provision legalizing such speed trap warnings is part of a wide-ranging motor vehicle law taking effect Tuesday with the new year.
Oviedo attorney J. Marcus Jones, who has helped headlight- blinking motorists get their tickets dismissed, said the new law doesn’t go far enough.
By the time the law was passed in March, the Florida Highway Patrol already had ordered state troopers to stop issuing tickets for high-beam flashing after being hit with a lawsuit Jones filed on behalf of Erich Campbell.
The St. Petersburg College student from Land O’ Lakes was cited for violating an existing law that says “flashing lights are prohibited on vehicles” except for turn signals.
The lawsuit contends the Highway Patrol had been misinterpreting that provision in Florida’s traffic code because it was meant only to ban drivers from having strobes or official looking emergency vehicle lights on their cars and trucks.
A Pinellas County judge dismissed Campbell’s $115 ticket, but his lawsuit is in trouble.
Another judge in Tallahassee ruled it’s a moot issue because of the new law. Jones, though, has asked Circuit Judge Kevin Carroll to reconsider because of the loopholes he believes it contains.
Jones said police still can use other sections of the traffic code to ticket motorists for flashing their headlights. Those provisions include prohibitions against using high beams within 500 feet of an oncoming vehicle. The new exception for flashing headlights doesn’t apply to those parts of the traffic code, Jones said.
So use caution and know the law in the state you are in!
Courtesy of Associated Press
