Bill would require front-facing license plates in Florida
Front-facing license plates may soon be required on Florida cars.
A bill by Sarasota Republican Joe Gruters would make Florida the 30th state to require a second license plate. He says it’s to help vehicles be identified in hit and run accidents.
“The reason why they have two-way license plates is because, as people are speeding away from these scenes, there's a lot of cameras out there, and those cameras can't always see the back of the plate, and this is will hopefully address some of it.”
There are over 100 thousand hit and run accidents in the state every year, most of which go unsolved. The bill is still being workshopped to decide whether the state or residents will bare the cost of the additional plates.
Lawmakers Eye Changes After 2024 Hurricanes
On Tuesday, the Florida House started moving forward with a proposal to address issues during the damaging 2024 hurricane season.
A House committee unanimously approved a wide-ranging bill seeking to look at shelter regulations and address debris cleanup in rural counties.
Under the bill, residents could rebuild homesteaded property up to 130 percent larger than the pre-hurricane footprint without facing increases in their appraised property values.
The proposal also calls for state agencies to work with local governments to streamline permitting to repair and rebuild damaged structures.
Representative Fiona McFarland says her bill is the product of conversations with many groups.
“There is feedback from homeowners, from associations, from builders, from environmentalists and emergency managers. All of that is boiled into this bill.”
The legislation needs to clear two more House panels before it could go to the full chamber.
Sea turtles washing up this year in Brevard
Data from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission show that so far this year, 148 stranded sea turtles have been reported in Brevard, more than double the usual rate.
Allen Foley, a biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission said "The temperature of these waters during the winter is at the edge of that which can be tolerated by green turtles,".
"Our leading hypothesis as to a cause of this stranding spike is that these turtles are suffering from prolonged exposure to cold water," Foley said.
Bright Futures could be expanding to make it easier for military families to participate
A bill that passed its second committee in the Florida Senate on Tuesday would expand the Bright Futures program to make it easier for military families to participate.
The bill would allow students who graduate abroad because a parent is currently deployed or recently retired from the military to qualify for Bright Futures.
Bill sponsor Republican State Senator Danny Burgess:
“So we just want to give like a military family a little more runway to be able to get home at a reasonable time and still qualify for something that they otherwise would qualify for.”
Traditionally, only students who graduated from a Florida public or private high school or completed homeschooling in the state would have qualified for the scholarships.
The bill has one last committee stop to go, before a full vote of the Florida Senate. There’s a companion bill in the Florida House.
Robohomes: Florida’s Construction Future
The world's first mobile robotic block-laying machine, Hadrian X, is constructing homes at Babcock Ranch, marking a milestone in U.S. homebuilding.
Developed over two decades by Australia’s Fast Brick Robotics, Hadrian X can erect a house, walls-up, in just 8 to 10 hours with zero waste, potentially revolutionizing construction by functioning like a 3D printer on a truck.
After building its first U.S. home in Lehigh Acres in August 2024, the technology has now completed ten homes, all in Southwest Florida.
more: www.floridatoday.com
