Florida legislative proposals target express lanes, helmets
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:
Express lanes
A bill proposed in the Florida Senate would prevent the creation of more express lanes on state 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. 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. While state officials say the lanes — which use dynamic tolling, meaning drivers pay a higher toll when congestion is worse and a lower toll when traffic flows more smoothly — help ease congestion, while anti-toll advocates and some drivers argue the lanes create new problems, such as “lane diving,” where motorists try to avoid pay a toll by weaving through the poles that separate the express lanes from the general-use lanes.
The Florida Department of Transportation is adding express lanes to Interstate 95 in Broward County with plans to extend them north to Linton Boulevard.
On the Florida’s Turnpike system, express lanes are planned throughout South Florida with construction to begin locally in 2018. 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.
While proponents of the exemption say it should be up to each rider to decide if they want to wear a helmet, Florida saw 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. Deaths of motorcycle drivers in 2015 saw an even larger jump with 546 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, data show.
Transporting dogs
This measure, SB 320, would make it illegal for most motorists to keep a dog in the bed of a pickup 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.