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.
Motorcycle helmet and dog transporting laws.
Nanny State PING!
The citizen of our fine nation are suffering from to much government, at all levels, federal, state and local. There is no relief in sight. The word constitution comes to mind, seems to fall on deaf ears.
Don’t be fooled. The helmet law always is and always has been about the benjamins. The insurance industry wants a bigger piece of the pie. Pay them off and the issue will go away until the next time.
Agreed .
I visit many rehab and head trauma units with our rescue pets.
I see many former cyclists in these places .
It’s beyond words the struggles that I witness sometimes.
Put a Helmut on for your families peace of mind .
The only express lanes I'm aware of, are in Miami and Miami only.
As far as helmets, it should be the prerogative of the rider.
Approving motorcycle riding without a helmet was one thing I thought Governor Bush got wrong.
Thanks to Donald Trump republicans nationwide have an opportunity to get their heads out of their butts and stop being “democrat lite”.
They can put distance between themselves and democrats by following Trump’s lead of getting government out of our hair and stop trying to micro-manage every aspect of our existence.
This guy hasn’t seen the light or gotten the message yet.
I am happy for you. As an adult, I will determine whether to wear a helmet or not.
I wish, as an adult, I could refuse to pay medical costs inflated by the legal requirement upon hospitals to treat everyone irrespective of their ability to pay. I don't care if people who make bad decisions have to pay the price, but I object when I'm required to carry the cost for their judgement.
Many of the motor cyclist head trauma patients become wards of the State due to the massive medical bills the family has to walk away from or declare bankruptcy themselves .
I see it all the time at these places.
It becomes the everyone problem when your decision to not wear a helmet creates a new state ward.
A state rep from The Villages should not be allowed to speak, much less file a bill.
The Villages=Busybody yentas
The numbers are minuscule.
Going along with this system won’t change it. Putting a stupid helmet on everybody won’t change it either. Helmets are only rated to 17mph...beyond that...good luck.
>Approving motorcycle riding without a helmet was one thing I thought Governor Bush got wrong.
It’s a good thing We got the OK from Nanny Govt to be as stupid as one wishes.
Wonder how much more benevolence they may bequeath?
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I don’t care if people who make bad decisions have to pay the price, but I object when I’m required to carry the cost for their judgement.
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Think you’ll find nothing just trolls saying otherwise.
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I could refuse to pay medical costs inflated by the legal requirement upon hospitals to treat everyone irrespective of their ability to pay.
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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
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