TAMPA, Fla. — Florida’s new school speed zone cameras are causing a lot of confusion among drivers.
“It could be confusing to anyone,” said Joe Weaver of Tampa.
“I just didn't get it,” Martha Foster agreed.
Same for Juan Calderon. “This is a confusing thing,” he said.
All three Hillsborough County drivers were fined recently after getting caught on one of these new cameras when it recorded them speeding through a Florida school zone.
But it’s not the cameras baffling them; it’s the signs warning them to slow down.
“From this time to this time it's going to be enforced, then it's not going to be enforced for about an hour, then it's going to be enforced again,” said Calderon.“There’s so much clutter,” he said while describing the school speed zone signs after he was caught speeding on three different occasions.
At $100 per citation, Calderon received $300 in violations in less than one month.
“That’s like a paycheck for some people,” the father of four told Investigative Reporter Katie LaGrone recently.
Earlier this month, we shared how Joe Weaver was also caught by a school zone camera in Hillsborough County. At the time, he was going 38 miles per hour in a 40-mile-per-hour speed zone that drops to 20 miles per hour “when flashing,” according to the school zone sign. Confusion and frustration over these new cameras have already forced some counties and cities to suspend the cameras altogether.
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But that sign wasn’t flashing at the time of his violation. In fact, it can’t because it’s not equipped with a flasher.
“I got a raw deal,” he said about the $100 violation he received.
Weaver was so frustrated by the citation that he appealed it before a Hillsborough County Magistrate Judge.
“Since I didn’t see the flashing light, I assumed the speed limit was 40,” he told the Magistrate back in June.
Magistrate Dr. Thomas Santarlas agreed with Weaver’s argument.
“That’s a great argument and I agree with you 100%,” he said.“If that light is not blinking, people are going to think it’s safe to do the speed limit,” Magistrate Santarlas said.
But even that wasn’t enough for Weaver’s violation to get dismissed.
The same applies to other drivers who believe these new school zone cameras are generating a significant amount of money, but also causing a lot more confusion because the signs around them aren’t always clear.
“We the public got caught by surprise,” Calderon told the Magistrate during his appeals hearing in May. Calderon tried to argue the signage around the cameras is confusing. In his case, one of the signs explaining to drivers when the school zone is enforced has four different start and stop times for drivers to process as they're driving through the school zone.
Calderon told Reporter LaGrone he felt the new school camera program is unfair to drivers.
“In a way, I felt like it was an entrapment,” he said.
The Judge ended up dismissing one of Calderon’s three tickets after acknowledging how confusing the sign could be to drivers.
Martha Foster also got a triple hit after getting caught speeding in the same school zone.
“I’m on a fixed income. I'm shocked,” she said. One of her three tickets was also dismissed after the Magistrate felt bad for her.
According to the state’s new law, school zone cameras can operate 30 minutes before school, during school, and up to 30 minutes after school.
Drivers are only cited if the cameras catch them going faster than 10 miles over the school zone limit.
While the new law mandates signs be posted when designated school speed zone times are enforced, when it comes to signs with a flashing beacon, it’s not clear if the beacon must be flashing for a driver to be caught and cited.
According to the law, flashing beacons can be used “as an alternative” to signs posting the times of a school zone.
So, in Hillsborough County, drivers who believe they were misled by the sign are still out of luck.
“Per statute, you either have to have the sign or the beacon; you’re not required to have both,” said a liaison for the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s office during Weaver, Calderon, and Foster’s appeals hearings.
Confused yet? You’re not the only one!
During the last two appeals hearings in Hillsborough County, Magistrate Santarlas repeatedly said how the new statute should be revised to clarify signage requirements, especially when signs directing drivers to slow down “when flashing” aren’t flashing.
Santarlas also complained about the lack of uniformity with school speed zone signs, including the ones that post multiple start and stop times for drivers to abide by.
Republican State Representative Susan Valdes of Tampa co-sponsored the 2023 bill that made school speed zone cameras legal in Florida. We brought her these concerns from drivers.
“You've got to use common sense,” she said about how some drivers are getting cited by signs that don’t flash. “If you don't have a flasher, how are you going to put a sign up that you're going to give them a ticket,” she asked after we told her drivers were getting cited for it.
However, since the law states that flashing beacons can be used as an “alternative” to signs that post times in a school zone, some counties, including Hillsborough County, are upholding those citations.
At one point during LaGrone’s interview with Representative Valdes, the Representative needed additional clarification herself and paused the interview to call the Hillsborough County sheriff’s office, which helps enforce the state’s new camera law.
After her conversation, Representative Valdes acknowledged there might be a problem and reason to introduce new legislation clarifying signage requirements.
“I appreciate the insight of this. We definitely do not want to run pieces of legislation that are just good sound bites and good ideas but a challenge to implement,” she said.
“I don't like gotchas,” she told LaGrone.
But for some drivers, that’s exactly what these new cameras have become for them.
“One shouldn't have to guess or be baffled by what's right and what's wrong,” said Joe Weaver.
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