TALLAHASSEE — Small autonomous or remotely operated private supply gadgets, used to hold meals and small packages, can be allowed to function on bike lanes and street shoulders underneath a transportation bundle permitted by the Florida Senate on Wednesday.
Nevertheless, these robotic gadgets can be prohibited underneath the measure (SB 1220) from making such deliveries in state parks, state forests and wildlife administration areas. Moreover, the gadgets, together with unmanned drones, can be barred from flying over particular districts and theme parks with out their consent.
And that’s only a small a part of a number of wide-ranging transportation packages that must be hammered out between the chambers with simply over per week remaining within the common session.
With little remark, the Senate voted 35-1 in assist of the invoice by Sen. Ralph Massulo, R-Lecanto, that additionally partly requires seaports to determine and prioritize key provide chain elements, will increase the share of Florida’s Turnpike tolls collected in Palm Seashore, Broward and Miami-Dade counties that have to be used for turnpike tasks in these counties, and makes it a second diploma felony to shoot into an unoccupied autonomous car.
The companion measure within the Home (HB 1233) awaits motion on the chamber’s ground.
In the meantime, the Home on Wednesday additionally handed a separate transportation bundle (HB 543) in a 107-1 vote that requires seaports situated in counties with spaceport amenities to yearly define steps taken to assist the business area launch business.
“It is a actually good invoice,” mentioned invoice sponsor Rep. Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota. “Most of it isn’t good, however nothing that’s on the particular calendar as we speak, or tomorrow, or subsequent week will probably be good both. It would simply be principally good, which is all we will hope.”
McFarland’s measure requires the Florida Division of Transportation to extend by 0.4 seconds the minimal “perception-reaction time” of all regular yellow site visitors alerts within the state situated at an intersection geared up with a red-light cameras.
One other a part of the invoice permits native governments to approve circumstances, together with indicators, that enable golf carts to cross a freeway at an intersection with a site visitors sign.
The measure additionally clarifies a 2025 legislation relating to the visibility of license plates by stating that frames or drivers with ornamental borders don’t commit a legal offense when they don’t obscure the numbers and letters or the registration decal.
The measure additionally permits autos displaying legitimate disabled parking permits or plates to occupy multiple non-handicapped parking area.
Rep. Kelly Skidmore, D-Boca Raton, voted towards the invoice as a result of she mentioned the disabled parking area measure doesn’t tackle the affect on handicapped areas created by a 2025 state legislation that allowed pregnant ladies to make use of parking areas reserved for individuals with disabilities.
“I do know that this double-parking factor is supposed to be useful, however it’s not useful once we don’t know that these autos nonetheless received’t be towed,” Skidmore mentioned. “People who find themselves getting ticketed and towed will almost certainly nonetheless be getting ticketed and towed, particularly in the event that they’re in a personal lot.”
McFarland, who backed permitting pregnant ladies to make use of the handicapped area, mentioned the state wants to deal with the proliferation of fraudulent handicapped placards, which she put at about 26 p.c.
“Whether or not they’re issued by a physician that doesn’t exist, or the physician’s signature has been Xeroxed, or they’re being utilized by somebody who just isn’t the issued recipient, I might slightly remedy the 26 p.c of fraud,” McFarland mentioned.
The Home transportation proposals are unfold throughout a number of payments within the Senate, with lower than two weeks remaining within the common session.
