Florida Anti Biker Law - License Tags, Wheelies, Speeding

After hearing so many interpretations of Florida's new Anti-Biker Law, we wondered what in the hell was the real deal. Luckily for us, we have a reader who's also a practicing attorney. He's put the legalese into laymen's terms for us.
Thanks, David W., Esquire.
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The weather for Biketoberfest this year couldn’t have been better, but there was one subject other than the perfect weather that was the big subject of discussion everywhere we stopped. Everybody’s talking about the new Florida motorcycle law that went into effect on October 1st, 2008. The new law is FL Statute 316.1926, and it covers wheelies, tags and ex-ceeding the speed limit in excess of 50 mph. This new law originated last year from Florida House Bill #137, which quickly became known as the Anti-Biker Bill.
This new law that came from the Anti-Biker Bill is a little difficult to understand because it is written in typical legislative legalese. It’s vague; it references several other statutes for much of the information (FS 316.2085 (2), (3), and FS 318.14 for the penalties), and it’s just plain hard to understand as it’s written. It’s as clear and fun to read as a how to book on changing a transmission gear on a metric rice rocket. But, remember most legislators are lawyers, and while the convoluted mumbo-jumbo legalese expressing the legislative intent of statutes is sort of a professional self preservation for we attorneys, it’s not allowed in statutes. Laws must be clearly written to be valid, and so far this new law has been misinterpreted by everyone. This should lead to its ultimate repeal, but that will take awhile, and there are going to be a lot of tickets issued between now and then.
So here’s the plain talk. The basic intent of the new statute is three new rules:
1) no wheelies.
2) license tags must be displayed horizontally, and
3) enhanced fines for exceeding the speed limit in excess of 50 mph.

The big problem with the statute as it’s written, is that it made all three issues punishable by the same penalty as the penalty for the excessive speeding, and that penalty is steep. Whether this was intentional or a mistake is still unclear, but here’s the law as it is now written:
For a first offense it’s a $1,000 fine; second offense is $2,500 and loss of license for one year, and the third offense is a third degree felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison, a $5,000 fine, and loss of license for 10 years. Yep, you heard me right—having your tag mounted vertically is a $1,000 fine for the first offense, etc.!
I know you’ve heard many different stories already about the tag fine. I heard several versions myself while at Bike-toberfest. This has been a matter of great confusion so far, and there have been many different interpretations of the penalty portion of the statute. Even the cops don’t seem to have a uniform understanding of this new law. Recently the Tallahassee Clerk of the Courts issued an Advisory Bulletin that clears up the confusion and clearly states the rules and penalties. With the publication of the bulletin, there is now no doubt that the penalty for wheelies, tags or plus 50 are all the same. For those so inclined, you can read the bulletin at: http://www.floridaabate.com/Library/Library/CourtClerkBulletin082008.pdf Mr. Mike ‘Radar’ Price, State Legislative Director for ABATE of Florida, Inc. has been actively following this bill on behalf of all bikers since its inception, and we all owe him a thank you for his efforts. On the ABATE website, Radar tells of checking with his local police department and then with the local sheriff’s office to get some clarity on the new law. Both offices looked up the statute and both departments incorrectly interpreted the fine to be $125.50, instead of the correct amount of $1,000. But the lucky chance that you may get a ticket for only $125.50 for one of these offenses has now run out since the clerk’s office published the official interpretation with the higher penalties required.
You may be asking yourself, why do we need this wonderful new law to regulate motorcycles, and who came up with such a great new idea. Well, this whole mess started last year when this newbie state representative, Carlos Lopez-Cantera of Miami, witnessed some bikers driving recklessly, in his opinion, during a biker rally ride-along with the Miami police. That’s right! A ride with the Miami Police Motorcycle Division, and they didn’t have a problem with the riders. (Here’s this ding-a-ling’s website; please send him a letter thanking him for his fine work against bikers. http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Representatives/details.aspx?MemberId=4357&SessionId=57).
Anyway, the bill he introduced was targeted specifically against motorcyclist and quickly earned its more popular name of Anti-Biker Bill. Well, Mr. Cantera is not a lawyer, and it seems he didn’t know that laws have to meet constitutional standards of fairness and can not be unjustly discriminatory, so with the help of some of the other legislators, the law evolved to include not just motorcyclists but all Florida drivers exceeding the speed limit by 50 mph. Earlier versions of the bill also had proposed penalties of forfeiture of your bike, but with the efforts of several motorcycle support groups such as ABATE, that seems to have been excised along the way also. Well, here’s the problem: the bill may have been broadened to include all drivers as to the speeding, but the wheelies and tag issues are still subject only to motorcycles. So presumably you could mount you car tag vertically, or pop a wheelie in your street-legal dune buggy and it would only be a $125.50 fine. But do it on a motorcycle and you pay the big fines. Now you understand why the bill earned the name Anti-Biker Bill.
Hopefully, this new law will be overturned. But, it’s going to take awhile for the cases to make their way through the court system and ultimately to the appellate level for review.
As for wheelies, we already have laws that prevent wheelies. Wheelies have always been subject to reckless driving citation; just ask someone who's done one in front of a cop before this new law. The best lawyer in the state isn’t going to get you out of a reckless driving citation if you get caught doing a wheelie in traffic. But if it’s open road and no one is at risk but the rider, who cares? Not me. (e.g. helmet law arguments). At the risk of overstating an obvious, wheelies have an inherent penalty; if you blow it, you’ll pay in both injury to yourself and damage to your bike. So why do we need a new law with an unreasonable penalty that specifically restricts wheelies? The laws we have cover it, and raising the price on the ticket to a ridiculous amount isn’t going to stop it from happening. It’s just going to tempt the person doing it to run.
On a side note, the new law doesn’t address wheelies with passengers, and I’ve seen those before and think there should be a heavy fine for that. But like I said, we already have lots of laws, and a wheelie with a passenger can already be a criminal offence and a civil tort (you can be sued by the passenger, even if you land the wheelie and the passenger is not injured). We already have tons of laws; just ask a lawyer.
The way to stop wheelies and unsafe driving is talking and showing safe riding. Attitudes are contagious. Encourage friends to ride safely, and tell friends when they shouldn’t ride home. On the other side of that and, more importantly, let’s all listen to our friends when they try to tell us the same. Legislators like making new laws, but we have laws that cover anything you can think of several times over already. New laws usually just muddy the waters and make things worse. What’s next? No black leather jackets when riding at night, because it makes the rider hard to see.
Let’s hope Rep. Lopez-Cantera doesn’t get that one started. Next time let’s talk about the do’s and don’ts when you get pulled over for a ticket.
Have fun, but keep it safe.