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State Rep. Doug Bankson’s “tag flipping bill,” is headed for a floor vote in the Florida House, having unanimously passed the Judiciary Committee on April 8, 19-0.
The bill is co-sponsored by by Rep. Johanna Lopez, a Democrat who represents parts of Orange County. The companion legislation in the Senate, Senate Bill 44, is sponsored by Ana Maria Rodriguez, a Republican who represents Monroe County and part of Miami-Dade.
The legislation, House Bill 253, aims to impose penalties for owning or using any device or product that hides a vehicle’s license plate from being read by speed cameras or toll road systems or that “flips” between two or more license plates.
Presenting the bill to the Judiciary Committee, the last of three committees where the legislation was heard — it also passed unanimously in both the Government Operations Subcommittee and the Criminal Justice Subcommittee — Bankson said Florida had no law on the books to deal with products that tamper with license plates.
“This has hindered crime-solving due to purposefully inhibiting detection,” said the Republican who represents Winter Garden.
The Florida Highway Patrol notes that illegal license plate altering has increased 98 percent since 2020.
House Bill 253 also addresses installing red, blue and white lights on vehicles to impersonate law enforcement in order “ to pull someone over, which could lead to assault, theft, carjacking, and trafficking, as well as eroding trusts in true law enforcement,” he said.
Several trade organizations supported the legislation, including the Florida Automobile Dealers Association, Florida Sheriffs Association and Florida Highway Patrol chapter of the Police Benevolent Association.
State Rep. Dan Daley said he supported the bill, but questioned how license plate-obscuring crimes would ultimately be prosecuted in court.
“When a prosecutor goes to prove it, unless there's been an admission that they were the person that put the tag on the vehicle, or the officer physically saw them do it, it's almost impossible to prove, so we end up dropping it,” the Broward Democrat said. “I'd love to get with you… to address this issue just from a proof perspective.”
An amendment filed Friday, added wording to specify that a driver had to “knowingly” tamper with the license plate to have committed a second-degree misdemeanor.
