Then, to his surprise, one of the troopers pulled over his silver Toyota Tundra and ticketed him for improper flashing of high beams.  "Literally within one minute, they had me stopped on the side of the road," recalled Campbell, 38, a former electrician and full-time student.  In August, the Land O'Lakes, Fla., resident filed a class-action lawsuit in Tallahassee against the highway patrol and other state traffic-enforcement agencies. He seeks an injunction barring law enforcement from issuing headlight-flash tickets, plus refunds and civil damages for previously cited motorists.  Campbell's lawyer, J. Marc Jones, claims his client's First Amendment right to free speech was violated. "The flashing of lights to communicate with another driver is clearly speech," he said.  David Hudson, a scholar at the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University who has studied the issue, said motorists have previously challenged headlight-flashing tickets in New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee, but those were individual cases, rather than the statewide class-action lawsuit in Florida.  "The First Amendment protects all sorts of non-verbal conduct; it protects more than the spoken or printed word," Hudson said. "Courts have found that a wide variety of actions — such as honking one's horn or flashing one's headlights — are forms of communication under the First Amendment."  Florida Highway Patrol Capt. Mark Welch, a departmental spokesman, said he could not comment on pending litigation. Last week, the agency filed a motion for summary judgment, and the case remains ongoing. Five days after the lawsuit was filed, Welch said patrols stopped citing motorists for flashing headlights until the case is resolved.  Rich Roberts, spokesman for the International Union of Police Associations, said the Florida statute is intended to ban after-market flashing lights to prevent people from impersonating a police officer. He said the statute's language needs clarification from the court, or from state legislators.  But, Roberts said, "warning oncoming traffic that there are law enforcement officers ahead allows a speeder to slow down until he passes the officers — and then he starts speeding again. In that sense, they're (headlight flashers) essentially interfering with legitimate law enforcement activity."
A Florida motorist has filed a lawusit challenging a headlight-flashing ticket he received after warning other motorists to a speed trap.