Talk of The Villages Florida - View Single Post - Missing Vehicle Gates
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Old 08-24-2022, 07:58 PM
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LAFwUs LAFwUs is offline
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>>The STOP sign sure looks real to me and I suppose a person could get a ticket for not stopping<<

The Villages does not have its own codified traffic laws afaik.
It may have "rules" "regulations" and certain "signage" - as a means of traffic control (ie: liability reduction), which may fall under or was probably established congruent with county codes of that specific area. This generally keeps people behaving...or not as the case may be. Rules however are not the same as actual laws.

From a traffic sign enforcement standpoint however;
A temporary (non City Gov/DOT approved & installed) stop sign (or any traffic sign for that matter), on what would be considered private (district) property (under legal definition) would only have some force of law behind it, if it is on a major roadway - as I understand FL law.
The definition of "major roadway", could be subject to debate or at least assessment. It therefore could be easily argued that many village entrances/exits would not fall under that specific legal definition and thus the sign itself has no actual police enforcement behind it - if a driver doesn't stop.

There might be a citation issued if an accident where to occur, due to a drivers failure to yield / stop and LE responded to that incident. No different than any accident on an uncontrolled 2 or 4 way stop, in regards to legal right of way, pedestrian endangerment, etc. as these apply regardless of official traffic control measures.
My educated guess is, it could be argued out in court - if - it just the entrance to a village, off a main arterial & perhaps more importantly, the stop sign was in fact "temporary" in nature - due to a faulty or missing (already established) traffic control device - again, all on non-city property.
This is just my back of the napkin response as an old, former, out of state LEO now living here.
As we all know the villages and its being a district, fit into a hard to figure out, rather bizarre slot when it comes to applicable legalities and they may have policies & procedures in place with the applicable county sheriffs that over ride the norm.

Like it or not, the question boils down to one of actual enforcement.
How many of these signs exist in the whole of The Villages? There could be hundreds.
They are I'd wager, all but impossible to proactively enforce & if so, then by whom and to what end?
People know this is a non-starter or simply don't care, as they have places to go and people to see.
8 whole seconds to come to complete stop before proceeding 1 or 3 more blocks home, is simply asking to much. :/

Last edited by LAFwUs; 08-24-2022 at 08:41 PM.