Last year drivers in Florida saw new regulations intended to correct dangerously slow drivers. Only Florida, right?
There are no laws so far for 2017 aimed specifically at drivers and insurance companies in Florida, but there are a few new laws that some Florida drivers will want to bear in mind, for instance:
Electronic Skimmers
It’s not so easy to use an illegal electronic skimmer at the checkout at Wal-Mart, but at the credit card slider at a gas pump, it’s easy to get away with. A new law backed by Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam will increase penalties for people who use skimmers or even possess stolen credit card info. The law will also see more security devices installed at fuel pumps. If you’ve been scamming your way through gas stations across the state, now’s the time to knock it off before you wind up in the big house.
Spiny Lobsters
To crack down on overfishing, revisions to laws on crab and lobster traps have been made. If you’re caught with under 100 undersized spiny lobsters, you’re looking at a misdemeanor charge for each lobster. If you have more than 100, that’s going to be a third-degree felony. If you’re on your way back from the beach with a truck full of fresh catches, don’t be surprised if the cops want to have a look inside those Igloo coolers.
House Arrests
If you help someone to remove or circumvent the use of a monitoring device while they’re on house arrest, you’re looking at a third-degree felony charge. In other words, maybe you’ll want to think twice before pressuring your parolee friend to come drinking with you, since it’s not just his butt on the line if he gets caught.
EBT Cards
Selling an EBT card, or owning more than one at a time, is now a misdemeanor offense. Call it a crackdown on welfare, war on the poor, whatever you like, but the point is, you’re going to want to make sure you’re playing the straight and narrow the next time you come out of the supercenter with a carload of groceries.
Disabilities Protection
Any civil or criminal penalties you might incur over an assault, theft, you name it, will be considerably steeper if the victim is a person with disabilities. This follows a 2015 shooting of a disabled autistic man resulting from a botched car robbery. You probably want to avoid getting into road rage incidents all together.
2017 hasn’t been the most eventful year so far for new traffic laws in the Sunshine State, but there are plenty of laws that do affect drivers nonetheless. By March, we should have a clearer picture of whether or not Florida is going to see a lot of new traffic laws. Until then, just bear in mind that you probably shouldn’t assault a man in a wheelchair because he refused to buy one of your EBT cards so you could load up your car with over 200 spiny lobsters.
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