Since October 2008 vertical license plate were illegal in the State of Florida. The first fine to violate the law was a whopping $1000…
Abate of Florida reports that governor Charlie Crist signed an amended bill restoring the legality of the use of a vertical tag for motorcycles and scooters if it cannot be adjusted or flipped up to conceal the plate numbers. It seems that the new law already took effect on July 1st.
Surprise. Usually the legislator doesn’t come back on his writing.
Lawmakers are suckers…they legalize whats not required and illegalized the thing which hardly matters…
FLORIDA VERTICAL TICKET REFUND INFORMATION …
For those of you that were issued a ticket for a vertical tag infraction , please remit your full name with contact information , hold your breath and a refund check will magically appear in your mail box .
Happy 4th of July .
Only after I made changes on my 1982 fender, basterds! only in Fl ?
Interesting point in Florida seat belt law. { Police now can stop you without any other infraction }
Printed in todays newspaper it stated that the driver must wear a seat belt, front seat passenger and no one under the age of 16 can ride in the front seat. What ! lets hope that this is a miss print. LOL
Damn, just when we were selling lots of Billet Horizonal Tag Bracket replacements to our customers in Florida! Oh well!
Over & Out,
Jeff
Congratulations to Florida ABATE. I would be a liar if I told you that I knew anything about what had to happen to get the amendment. However congratulations are in order to the peole who fought the government for a fair/er law. Rather than choose to just bitch about it they did something about it. There is something to be learned from that.
Have a great 4th!
Joe
To clarify what happened.
In 2008 Doc Reichenbach President of ABATE and their lobbyist was involved with testimony before the legislative committee that had a bill that would consficate motorcycles for doing wheelies and other types of riding including speeding.
The bill was mainly directed at import motorcycles and Doc stated that he did not consider the riders of them Bikers. He had signed off on the bill telling others that address motorcycle issues in the state everything was under control.
It was found out it was not and RC, other motorcycle rights indivuals and BOLT got involved to get the consfication and other parts of the bill changed.
Unknown to these people Doc had allready agreed to the verticle license bill. The story is that he traded off Motorcycle Rights for those riders he did not consider Bikers for support for a bill he had in that included inhanced penalties for those killing a motorcyclist in a collision.
After he signed off on that and also a bill that increased the fee for a license by $2.00 the governor removed the increased penalties part of the bill before he signed the others into law.
Thanks to Doc the bill and the $1,000 fine passed. When the motorcyclist of Florida got on him and ABATE they were obligate to go back in this year and correct the problem.
Everyone should also be aware that the $2.00 that was added to the license was to be used for education and during this session not 6 months after it went into affect the state took it to fund other things.
ABATE did not object to this. It should be noted that ABATE is also excepting Grant Money from the State of Florida which many clain is a pay off for allowing money making legislation against motorcyclist.
There is big unrest in ABATE of Florida and many members are requesting That Doc resign and that a Open Electionion be held to determine a new president.
Gee, I don’t know what the hell to believe about Florida when Doc Reichenbach and his ABATE of Florida crew tells me anything. So many of his statements conflict with reality and truth.
It is a fact that Florida had two vertical laws that were in force. Sis they get rid of one and keep the other? Is this a way that Doc can claim a victory for the state and the legislators at the same time?
As a lobbyist, Doc, how much of the ABATE funds did you spend on creating this debacle and how much more on undoing it? Have you released those figures?
What other areas of law concerning motorcycles are you going to create a problem and then offer a solution?
Doc, do you have an alliance with the government and the insurance community? Why have you tried to fracture any unity of motorcyclists because of the type of bike or style of riding that is done?
Joe, Florida already had a law against vertical license plates. All James D. Reichenbach president and lobbyist of ABATE of Florida Did is support a new law that made the fine much more expensive and left police with the option of slapping you with the least expensive fine or the more expensive fine at their discretion.
After much outrage from a large number of Florida Bikers Representative Lopez-Cantera promised to set “his version” of the vertical tag law straight. HE posted his promise on our site BigBendBikersForFreedom.com
After speaking with Lopez_Canteras office and obtaining a copy of a letter Lopez Cantera wrote, both of which stated the President of ABATE of Florida was working with his office on on HB137, the bill that caused the problems initially, The ABATE of Florida President put out a letter stating that he “was not” working with Lopez-Cantera.
Lopoez -Cantera to date, like it or not, has done everything he has said he is going to do.
The President of ABATE of Florida on the other hand has flip flopped so many times regarding his version of events a fish out of water would be tame in comparison.
You can follow the links in this post
http://www.bigbendbikersforfreedom.com/2008/10/and-so-now-crying-starts-hb137-you-got.html
to validate the above
“I would be a liar if I told you that I knew anything about what had to happen to get the amendment.”
Before posting you may wish to “knkkow” something about that which you choose to post on. rc
3 USD in Russia 🙂
Cyril Huze needs to do some cursory research before proliferating ABATE’s lie, that they “restored legality of vertical tags”. Never was legal.
Read the original vehicle equipment code – http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?mode=View%20Statutes&SubMenu=1&App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=license+plate&URL=CH0316/Sec605.HTM
“all letters, numerals, printing, writing, and other identification marks upon the plates regarding the word “Florida,” the registration decal, and the alphanumeric designation shall be clear and distinct….. Vehicle license plates shall be affixed and displayed in such a manner that the letters and numerals shall be read from left to right parallel to the ground. No vehicle license plate may be displayed in an inverted or reversed position or in such a manner that the letters and numbers and their proper sequence are not readily identifiable.”
Cyril seems to be right. The text you mention was amended in June.
It is true, I called the Florida Statue dept and they said it passed and just has not been updated in the system yet. 316.2085 they removed the word “horizontal” from the law on motorcycles and mopeds to just say it must be permanantly mounted in a matter that can’t be folded or hidden. It is here:
http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/index.cfm?Mode=Bills&SubMenu=1&Tab=session&BI_Mode=ViewBillInfo&BillNum=1100&Chamber=Senate&Year=2009&Title=%2D%3EBill%2520Info%3AS%25201100%2D%3ESession%25202009
The new amended law here in PDF format:
http://laws.flrules.org/files/Ch_2009-183.pdf