$50.00 Fine For Flashing

[MalahatTwo7]

HA! Made ya look. In any case, this is actually a serious thread. I did some research a few weeks ago on a related topic and found that in BC and Ontario (specifically) it is illegal to flash your high beam headlights under any circumstance, UNLESS you are driving a certified emergency vehicle AND you are responding to an emergency situation.

Flashing Headlights Could Lead to Traffic Ticket. Man fights citation ... and wins

By JIM IOVINO

Updated 8:30 AM EDT, Wed, Jun 17, 2009

Don't go flashing other drivers, unless you're prepared to for a battle in court, that is...

Is it illegal for a driver to flash his or her headlights toward other drivers to alert them about speed traps?

That's still up for debate in Maryland, but one driver did his best to fight the powers that be after being slapped with a $50 fine.

Mark Zaid told the Washington Post he was driving in Bethesda when a driver headed the opposite direction flashed his lights at him to warn him about an enforcement zone. Zaid said he flashed his lights back to thank him. That's when he was pulled over by police and given a citation for flashing his lights. He was also told he could have been charged with "obstructing a police investigation."

Zaid, a lawyer, didn't think that was right. So he went to court. He won his case because the cop who issued the ticket was on military leave and didn't show for the court appearance. But despite that technicality, Zaid thinks he has a great argument and wants an apology.

Montgomery County police said Zaid violated a state law that prohibits driving with flashing lights.

But any good lawyer knows that it's all in the interpretation. David Rocah, an ACLU attorney, summed it up this way while talking to the Post:

Rocah said the state's law "clearly refers" to flashing lights as an "adjective, not a verb." He said that means it is not legal to drive with a continuously flashing light on a vehicle, but flashing a light once to communicate with someone on the road is not a violation.

"There's no debate," Rocah said. "What [Zaid] did was not illegal."

While Zaid won his court battle, the debate will indeed continue. Police still believe they have the right to issue citations if you flash your lights.

Something tells us this battle won't be decided until it reaches a level much higher than a district court.

[DFDCar1]

Sucked my gutter mind in with THAT post.... I thought that you were talking about something WORTH "flashing"....

[ffmedcbk1]

oh! I thought you were talking about another type of FLASHING!!

[MalahatTwo7]

Sucked my gutter mind in with THAT post.... I thought that you were talking about something WORTH "flashing"....

If ya can make one person smile in any given day, its just become a "Good Day"!

[ScareCrow57]

Funny thing is in Germany, flashing at some one to get them out of the way is approved and authorized. In this country people are just to arrogant and ignorant to understand that if you are going slow you are supposed to be in the slow lane.

[ActionGoose]

Funny thing is in Germany, flashing at some one to get them out of the way is approved and authorized. In this country people are just to arrogant and ignorant to understand that if you are going slow you are supposed to be in the slow lane.

Yeah, nobody in America understands flash-to-pass. If you flash at a pickup truck lumbering along in the slow lane, they will ignore you, and then flip you off when you finally get desperate and pass them on the right.

[ndvfdff33]

I did some research a few weeks ago on a related topic and found that in BC and Ontario (specifically) it is illegal to flash your high beam headlights under any circumstance

Yet I don't know how many times during my weekend travels from Kingston to Barrie on the 401 and 400 I was flashed at by some jackass driving 150 km/h.

[BryanLoader]

Funny thing is in Germany, flashing at some one to get them out of the way is approved and authorized. In this country people are just to arrogant and ignorant to understand that if you are going slow you are supposed to be in the slow lane.

Actually most of Europe is this way, Also Australia and some countries in Asia.
Standard joke in Alberta is somebody driving slow in the left lane thinks he has F plates. Years back, licensing on farm vehicles started with letter F, followed by series of numbers. Thus the guy thinks hes still out driving on the south 40.

[MalahatTwo7]

"South 40"? Is that anywhere near the BACK 40?

[doughesson]

Yeah, nobody in America understands flash-to-pass. If you flash at a pickup truck lumbering along in the slow lane, they will ignore you, and then flip you off when you finally get desperate and pass them on the right.

Why would you be wanting someone in the slow lane to pick up their pace?They're in the slow lane already so they must know that they can't maintain the posted limit.
And why pass them on the right if they are in the slow lane?Wouldn't that put you on the sidewalk or breakdown lane?
Don't you love it when you're motoring happily along at the posted speed limit because you figured all those tickets that you've been issued for speeding meant that you should observe the legal limits,then some yahoo who hasn't gotten the word that those signs with the numbers on them apply to him as well comes rawhiding up from behind and starts honking his horn and tailgating you as if you were doing something wrong?
I'm not going too slow in such situations,he's wanting to go too fast.
As to flashing a headlight at another vehicle,for all the cop knows,I'm trying to remind him to turn his headlights on as I could not see more than an outline of a vehicle approaching in the other direction.

[doughesson]

Funny thing is in Germany, flashing at some one to get them out of the way is approved and authorized. In this country people are just to arrogant and ignorant to understand that if you are going slow you are supposed to be in the slow lane.

For some reason,this letter to the editor of the Commercial Appeal stuck in my head when it was printed more than 10 years ago:
"If I am doing the speed limit and am going too slow to qualify for the left hand lane,then how fast *should* I be going to be allowed in the left hand lane.I am going the posted speed limit which is supposed to be as fast as you are allowed to drive on a given road."
Robert D Raiford,Curmudgeon at Large on the "John-boy and Billy's Big Show", once commented about school buses being on the interstate going too slow.I wrote a letter(he doesn't do emails) about how school buses generally have a speed limiting governor on their engines and cannot go faster than the local posted speed limits.I suggested that he check his speedometer when he comes up on such an "obstruction" and he will most likely find that they aren't going too slow but rather he is wanting to go too fast.
I never got a response to that letter and if he read it on the air,I never heard it.