No. CS/CS/SB 654
Filed under Transportation.
Traffic Infraction Enforcement; Revising the periods during which a county or municipality may enforce school zone speed limits, and the violations for which such enforcement is authorized, through the use of a speed detection system; prohibiting the use of a traffic infraction detector for remote surveillance; requiring district school board authorization and a public hearing process before a school district may place or install, or contract with a vendor to install, operate, and maintain, school bus infraction detection systems; revising the periods for which a county or municipality may authorize a traffic infraction enforcement officer to issue certain uniform traffic citations, etc.
Plain English Summary
AI-GENERATEDTraffic infraction detectors and school-zone speed cameras may no longer be used for surveillance beyond ticketing, and general roadway speed enforcement is dropped, leaving school zones as the main automated target.
School districts must now get a school board vote and hold a public hearing before installing bus stop-arm cameras, with the board weighing safety data and letting the public comment on the contract.
People who ignore a camera citation entirely, filing no hearing request, no affidavit, and no payment, can now have their vehicle registration withheld, though the window to contest one grows from 30 to 60 days.
The state now takes its usual 10 percent cut of red-light and bus-camera fines that used to be carved out for local governments, and the one-year deadline to prosecute a citation restarts if an affidavit names a different driver.
AITraffic infraction detectors used for red-light and related enforcement may only be used to catch the specific violations they are built for. Recorded video is limited to those uses, personal identifying information must be obscured where practical, and recordings must be destroyed within 90 days of a case's final disposition.
AIBefore a school district can place, install, or contract for a school-bus stop-arm camera system, the district school board must vote to authorize it and hold a public hearing where it weighs safety data for the route and lets the public comment on the contract.
AIThe definition of a speed detection system, and the periods it may be used, are now tied specifically to school zones and the hours listed in s. 316.1895(5), dropping the prior reference to general 'unlawful speed' enforcement under s. 316.183 that ran throughout this scheme.
AIThe Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles can now withhold a vehicle's registration if its owner was cited for a red-light, school-bus, or school-zone-speed camera violation and never requested a hearing, filed an affidavit, or paid the citation.
AIA school-zone speed camera citation cannot stand if the flashing beacon that signals an active school-zone speed limit was not turned on at the time of the violation, giving drivers a defense tied to whether the zone was actually signaled as active.
AICourt clerks must deposit 10 percent of most court-related fines into the state fine-and-forfeiture fund. This bill deletes the carve-out that had excused red-light-camera fines and certain other camera-related fines from that cut, so the state now takes its share of them too.
AIFor any school-zone speed-camera contract entered into or renewed on or after October 1, 2026, the vendor or manufacturer cannot be paid a commission or per-ticket fee, and no individual can be paid based on the number of violations the system detects.
AIThe one-year deadline to pursue a noncriminal traffic violation restarts when a county, municipality, or law enforcement agency receives an affidavit naming a different person as having had care, custody, or control of the vehicle at the time of the violation.