While in my car back in the middle of May, my wife and my kids were driving on Floirda's turnpike for a nice weekend vacation in Disney World. Around 9 PM on a Friday night, I flashed my headlights when I saw a police officer with no lights on in the median of the turnpike trying to pull people over for speeding. He didn't like this too much as about 2 miles down the road, I saw the blue flashing lights behind my minivan pulling me over---two police cars to pull over a family in a minivan---for the crime of flashing our headlights to expose a police presence. He reads me the statute of why he says it's illegal to flash your headlamps in the state of Florida. Anyway, I never heard of this being illegal before. So, when I got back into Ft Lauderdale after the weekend, I did some research. Florida stature 316.2397 subsection 7 states: Flashing lights are not permitted on a motor vehicle except to change lanes or if you are stopped in an emergency situation, etc....
Now, what this stature is intended to do is prevent people from mounting flashing lights like police lights onto their vehicle to impersonate a police car or other emergency vehicle....meaning the noun flashing lights...not the verb or action of "flashing". I had an attorney who has represented these cases before meet me in St Lucie County at the courthouse last week and hired a court stenographer to get every word of this case. Bottom line is---the judge threw out the case saying exactly what I stated here.....although he didn't like the fact I flashed my lights it wasn't an illegal act and certainly not under the statute the police officer cited. But, it's the closest statute that enables them to pull people over and give tickets out. Now, this citation comes with NO points so most people would pay the $116 dollars and be done...in fact, many people do and these cities raise SOOOO much money from these illegal stops. Now, I flash my lights whenever there is a speed trap with no worries. Currently, the law firm which I used is involved in getting the state to put an end to the police forces in Florida being able to do this. For me it wasn't about the money...but, rather stopping this injustice that the police are doing to many people every day down here. It felt good to win my case and see the face of that idiot police officer who was a cocky MF the night he gave me the ticket but wasn't too cocky in court that Friday when we won our case.