Senate slams brakes on speed limit increase for Florida highways

Between New and Old Seven Mile Bridge, Florida, USA against blue sky with clouds

The Senate approved a transportation bill but nixed language increasing highway speed limits with a last-minute amendment.

The legislative package (SB 462) passed on the Senate floor covers a number of issues, including operations of metropolitan planning organizations around the state.

One provision the public would have expected to notice swiftly — pun intended — was language allowing the Florida Department of Transportation to lift speed limits to new heights.

But Sen. Nick DiCeglie, a Pinellas County Republican, presented several amendments to the bill on the House floor, including one that “removes provisions from the bill authorizing an increase in speed limits.” That amendment was passed without objection.

Senators then passed the legislation 37-0.

DiCeglie’s legislation previously called for the maximum speed limit on limited access highways to jump from 70 miles per hour to 75 mph. It would also have allowed any other highways outside urban areas, meaning those with populations of 5,000 or more, to see the speed limit ramp up from 65 mph to 70 mph, so long as there was a median strip dividing the lanes of traffic.

The bill generated more discussion on the Senate floor about establishing a process to appeal speeding tickets issued through the use of school bus cameras. Several lawmakers were upset that the bill also shifts responsibility for collecting on those tickets to counties instead of law enforcement. DiCeglie said the relatively new ability for bus camera ticketing, which was just created last year, was in need of some reform.

“Currently, when it comes to the cameras on school buses, obviously, Miami-Dade, for example, they’ve completely suspended their program because folks were getting tickets in the mail. There was no way for them to appeal that process, which is a huge problem,” he said.

In the House, a companion bill (HB 567) made it through its last committee stop Tuesday, still with the speed limit language intact. That legislation now heads to the floor in the lower chamber. But if Representatives pass the bill with the increase in speed limits, it would have to bounce back to the Senate.

Rep. Fiona McFarland, the Sarasota Republican carrying the bill in the lower chamber, said that language originated in the House.

This isn’t the first time the Legislature explored increasing speeds on Florida’s highways. Similar increases blew through the Legislature in 2014, but crashed into then-Gov. Rick Scott’s veto pen.

This year, lawmakers chose to tie the speed boost to a broader legislative package. That would have meant Gov. Ron DeSantis would need to veto the entire bill if he wanted to pump the brakes on speed limits. To date, the Governor has made no public statements whether he supports or opposes the change.

But it appears the speed limits have already hit a barrier in the Senate, and likely don’t have a path forward.

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Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that speed limit increases remained in the Senate-passed transportation bill.