Illegal Traffic Stop in Florida: When No Turn Signal Was Required
There’s a category of case I love as a defense attorney — the kind where the cops did everything by common sense, where they looked at a situation and made a judgment call any reasonable person would make, and where the law says they were completely wrong. These cases don’t just feel good to win. They’re important, because they show that the Fourth Amendment means something even when you can’t see the violation from the sidewalk.
The case is Hurd v. State, 958 So. 2d 600 (Fla. 4th DCA 2007). A truck was driving in the far left lane. It crossed over a solid white line into the right lane without using a turn signal. No other cars were around. Officers following the truck saw the lane change, stopped it, and found cocaine inside. The officers believed they had two valid infractions — failure to maintain a single lane and failure to signal. They were right about one and wrong about the other. That difference was enough to throw the entire case out.
Charged With a Drug Crime That Started With a Traffic Stop?
If the stop that led to your arrest was illegal, everything found during it may come out. Don’t assume the state has a solid case. Call John Guidry at (407) 423-1117 to find out if the stop holds up.
Why No Turn Signal Was Required
Florida Statute § 316.155 requires a driver to signal before changing lanes or turning. However, the Florida Supreme Court made something clear in State v. Riley, 638 So. 2d 507 (Fla. 1994): the statute only requires a signal if another vehicle would be affected. No other cars on the road means no signal required. It’s that direct.
In Hurd’s case, officers watched the truck change lanes and documented it. They stopped it on that basis. The problem was that nobody else was on the road. Therefore, the lane change without a signal wasn’t a traffic infraction at all. The legal foundation for that part of the stop simply didn’t exist.
What About Crossing the Solid White Line?
Officers also cited failure to maintain a single lane. Crossing a solid white line looks like a violation — it looks like one to most drivers and it looks like one to most cops. However, failure to maintain a single lane under Florida law requires more than just crossing a line. The crossing has to be unsafe, or it has to affect other traffic. No other cars were present. The lane change was safe. Consequently, that infraction didn’t hold up either.
Two cited violations. Neither one supported the stop under Florida law. The 4th DCA reversed the conviction and sent the case back for the cocaine charge to be vacated.
The Fruit of the Poisonous Tree
This is the principle that makes illegal stops so powerful for the defense. When a traffic stop lacks a valid legal foundation, every piece of evidence that flows from it becomes contaminated. Courts call this the fruit of the poisonous tree. If the tree — the stop — is rotten from the start, nothing that grows from it belongs in court. Therefore, the cocaine the officers found during their search couldn’t reach the jury, and without it the state had no case to bring.
This isn’t a technicality. It’s the Fourth Amendment working exactly as intended — forcing the government to follow its own rules before it gets to use evidence against a citizen.
What Defense Attorneys Do With Cases Like This
Here’s something most people don’t realize: plenty of clients come to me believing the stop was legal. They describe what happened, and on the surface everything sounds fine. However, when I dig into the facts and the applicable statute, I sometimes find exactly what happened in Hurd — a stop that looked legally solid but couldn’t survive scrutiny.
This kind of case happens all the time. Officers apply common sense to traffic infractions and get the law wrong. They stop someone for something that technically looks like a violation but legally isn’t. The drugs come out, the arrest happens, and nobody in the process catches the error until an attorney files a motion to suppress.
If You Want More Related Content
If you’d like to dig deeper into this topic, I’ve covered another classic bad stop in detail — the squealing tires case — where a nearly identical principle produced the same result.
Watch: https://youtu.be/OC1o1yIBPlo
I’ve also written about how the state sometimes tries to benefit from illegal police activity, including what happens when an officer’s error leads to an arrest and the prosecution tries to use that evidence anyway.
Read: https://jgcrimlaw.com/articles/illegal-traffic-stop-florida-squealing-tires/
John’s Takeaways
- Florida Statute § 316.155 only requires a turn signal if another vehicle would be affected. No other cars on the road means no signal required — and no legal basis for the stop.
- Crossing a solid white line also isn’t automatically an infraction. The lane change has to be unsafe or affect other traffic to give an officer grounds to stop you.
- In Hurd v. State, 958 So. 2d 600 (Fla. 4th DCA 2007), the 4th DCA threw out a cocaine conviction because neither cited infraction held up under Florida law.
- The fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine means an illegal stop voids everything that follows it. The cocaine, the arrest, the charges — all of it comes out when the stop was unlawful from the start.
- These errors happen regularly and often go undetected. A motion to suppress isn’t a long shot — it’s the process working exactly as the Fourth Amendment intended.
Think Your Stop Might Not Hold Up? Let’s Look at It.
I’ve been filing motions to suppress in drug cases that started with questionable traffic stops since 1993. Sometimes the error is obvious. Sometimes you have to dig. Either way, I represent clients across Orange, Seminole, Osceola, Lake, Brevard, and Volusia County.
If a traffic stop led to drug charges, give my office a call. Let’s go through exactly what the officers claimed and find out whether the law supports them.
John Guidry — (407) 423-1117
About John Guidry II
John Guidry II is a seasoned criminal defense attorney and founder of the Law Firm of John P. Guidry II, P.A., located in downtown Orlando next to the Orange County Courthouse, where he has practiced for over 30 years. With more than three decades of experience defending clients throughout Central Florida since 1993, Guidry has successfully defended thousands of cases in Orange, Seminole, Osceola, Brevard, Lake, and Volusia counties. He has built a reputation for his strategic approach to criminal defense, focusing on pretrial motions and case dismissals rather than jury trials.
John Guidry earned both his Juris Doctorate and Master of Business Administration from St. Louis University in 1993. He is a member of the Florida Bar and the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. His practice encompasses the full spectrum of Florida state criminal charges, with a particular emphasis on achieving favorable outcomes through thorough pretrial preparation and motion practice.
Beyond the courtroom, Guidry is a prolific legal educator who has authored over 400 articles on criminal defense topics. He shares his legal expertise through his popular YouTube channel, Instagram, and TikTok accounts, where he has built a substantial following of people eager to learn about the law. His educational content breaks down complex legal concepts into accessible information for the general public.
When not practicing law, Guidry enjoys tennis and pickleball, and loves to travel. Drawing from his background as a former recording studio owner and music video producer in the Orlando area, he brings a creative perspective to his legal practice and continues to apply his passion for video production to his educational content.