Posted on 02/12/2017 10:08:13 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
It could be a busy legislative session for transportation issues in Florida.
Already, several bills have been filed addressing controversial topics ahead of the session’s March 7 opening.
Here’s a quick look at a few you’ll hear about in the coming weeks.
Express lanes
A bill proposed in the Florida Senate would prevent the creation of more express lanes on the state’s highways while also setting rules for how express lane toll money must be spent.
The measure, SB 250, was filed by state Sen. Frank Artiles, R-Miami. If the bill is made law during the upcoming session, it would ban state officials from creating any new express lanes after July 1.
Money collected from tolls on existing express lanes could only be used to pay off bonds used to create the projects. Once those bonds are paid off, the bill proposes that those express lanes would become general-use lanes.
The use of express lanes in South Florida has been met with mixed reactions.
State officials say the lanes — which use dynamic tolling, meaning drivers pay higher tolls when congestion is worse and lower tolls when traffic flows more smoothly — help ease congestion. But anti-toll advocates and some drivers argue express lanes create new problems, such as “lane diving,” where motorists try to avoid paying tolls by weaving between poles that separate the express lanes from the general-use lanes.
While Miami-Dade County has been ground zero for express lanes in South Florida, the Florida Department of Transportation is adding express lanes to Interstate 95 in Broward County with plans to extend them farther north to Linton Boulevard in Delray Beach. There is also a study underway to see if express lanes should go even farther, to Indiantown Road in Jupiter.
On Florida’s Turnpike system, express lanes are planned throughout South Florida — including southern Palm Beach County — with construction to begin there in 2018. However, Artiles’ bill would not apply to turnpike express lanes, only those on highways owned by FDOT.
Motorcycle helmets
This proposed bill, HB 6009, would require all motorcycle riders to wear helmets by stripping from state law an exemption added in 2000 that allows them to go helmet-less as long as they are over the age of 21 and have “at least $10,000 in medical benefits for injuries incurred as a result of a crash while operating or riding on a motorcycle.”
State Rep. Don Hahnfeldt, R-The Villages, filed the bill in December. If it passes, it would make riding a motorcycle without a helmet a noncriminal infraction.
Proponents of the state’s exemption say it should be up to each rider to decide whether to wear a helmet. Florida had an increase in motorcycle crashes in 2015 — the most recent data available — according to a report from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
There were more than 10,200 motorcycle crashes in the state in 2015, up 3.5 percent from 2014, the state report said. There was an even larger jump in deaths of motorcycle drivers in 2015; 546 were killed, up nearly 28 percent from the year before. And motorcycle passenger deaths spiked even higher, up almost 73 percent to 38 deaths in 2015. Nearly half of all people killed in motorcycle crashes in Florida in 2015 were not wearing helmets, according to state data.
Palm Beach County bucked the state trend, with a slight decrease in the number of motorcycle crashes from 2014 to 2015, dropping from 525 to 520.
But the number of people who died in motorcycle crashes in Palm Beach County doubled from 17 in 2014 to 34 in 2015.
Transporting dogs
This measure, SB 320, would make it illegal for most motorists to keep a dog in the bed of a pickup truck or open area of a trailer unless that dog is restrained, either in a kennel or with a tether.
There are two exceptions: if a dog is being transportation by a farmer or farm employee while working with the dog, and if a dog is part of a hunting event and being moved from one site to another.
Violating the law would be a noncriminal traffic infraction.
If it passes, the bill would go into effect July 1.
what?
repealing helmet laws all across america was one of the few good things Newts contract with America congress accomplished.
Helmet and seatbelt laws are BS!
In fact, nothing upsets me more about the government on a daily basis than (toilets that don’t work properly, shower heads that barely dribble, and that I feel like a criminal if I forget to put my seat belt on)
It’s NONE of the governments business if I wear a seat belt or a helmet! IT”S MY LIFE! and I have a RIGHT to be LEFT THE HECK ALONE!
Could? You find out how, please let the rest of us know; we’re still being robbed by gunpoint. Would be great to get away like yourself. /s
Removing the words "I wish" from the beginning of my statement alters the meaning. Not sure why you chose to do that.
There are express lanes being built in the Orlando and Jacksonville areas, and there is a reversible, elevated “express highway” on one of the highways in the Tampa area.
My problem is who will pay the medical bills when someone’s head get mashed into the payment. Florida only requires bikers to have $10,000 in medical insurance.
The same person or thing that pays the medical bills for any other injury.
Your argument makes no sense. By your reasoning ... we should pass a law requiring everyone to wear full fire protection suits in their homes... because ... who is going to pay the medical bills when they get get massive burns during a home fire?
You can’t protect everyone from everything.
Bikers who I see on crotch rockets are usually wearing helmets. Older bikers on big bikes are not wearing helmets.
Not surprising. It’s typical. Left-wing big government statist people move into a state like Florida From liberal cesspool’s like New York New Jersey Massachusetts in order to escape the high taxes and big nanny state government.
Then they vote for the same douche bag activist big government heal the world make it a better place liberal politicians with a D next to their name.
Then they stand around with their palms raised up wondering why their new home turned into a shit hole just like their old home.
They are carrying the disease with them. Please don’t ruin Florida before I get there. :-)
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