http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/seminole/os-flashing-headlights-moratorium-20110913,0,7641317.story According to Jones, the lawyer who filed both suits, "We've got a controversy on how traffic enforcement is applying the statute."
Both suits allege that cops who write those tickets are misapplying a statute designed to keep drivers from adding after-market emergency lights to their vehicles.
Bernie Rice, legal director at the Orange County Sheriff's Office, came to the same conclusion. This is what he wrote in his department-wide memo earlier this month:
"Does Florida Statute 316.2397(7) or another state law authorize law enforcement officers to ticket drivers who flash their headlights to warn other motorists of nearby traffic enforcement operations? No."
The Tallahassee suit alleges that Florida cops wrote 2,900 of those tickets between 2005 and 2010.
Highway Patrol spokesman Capt. Mark Welch said his agency doesn't know how many of those tickets Florida cops handed out in those years. It used to report those statistics but later discovered data errors that it cannot correct, he said.
What it can report with confidence, he said, is that 82 were written in the past 12 months.