Florida Traffic Law

This post deals with the Red Light Camera statute, s. 316.0083, Fla. Stat., better known as the Mark Wandall Traffic Safety Program Act. Mark Wandall was a victim of a red light runner. His tragic story has since been manipulated by our legislators and local representatives into a cash grab whereby safety is no longer the goal. In fact, safety has been completely overlooked and abandoned, evidenced by the discovery that yellow light times have been trimmed to dangerous levels in order to boost the profits from red light cameras. But I digress... One of the peculiarities of the statute is the decision to cite the first named owner on the registration of a vehicle when there are multiple owners. Since the driver of the car is never viewed by the cameras (a strange requirement of the law) it just puts blame on the owner of the vehicle. If there is more than one owner the first named gets cited. There is no explanation for why the statute does this except the argument by the state that i...