I get home from work Saturday evening to a letter from the DMV informing me that since I did not have insurance when I got into an accident in early March they were suspending my DL as of 12:00 am on Monday unless I get them my insurance info before then. And it will be a $150.00 fee to reinstate my DL if I don’t beat the deadline.

The only problem is that I had insurance. Pull out the paperwork the police filled out at the scene, yup, there is my insurance info plain as day. Also, since the accident I have gotten a new sticker for the motorcycle tag and renewed my DL that expired next month without any issues. I don't think I have lapsed my insurance since I was a broke E-3 scrambling for beer money 30+ years ago.

That gives me Sunday while I am working a 12 hour shift and every office is closed to straighten this out before midnight.

This takes the expected DMV incompetence and adds a whole lot of YOU FUCKING COCKSUCKING BASTARDS on top of it.

But wait, I have options to correct this:
-Call the FLHSMV on the phone? Not on Sunday.
-Go in person to the local tax collector’s office? Nope, it is still Sunday.
-Fill out and fax an enclosed form to them? Ok, we can do this but is there really going to be someone checking the fax machine Sunday to clear this up prior to the Monday am deadline?

So I fill out the info and fax it to them Sunday and I print out the confirmation page that shows the fax was successfully completed. Monday morning before work I go online to check the website and to my surprise, my DL status is now suspended.

I kept the printout of the fax confirmation in my truck and drove to work on Monday and Tuesday anyways. I try calling them during my breaks and lunch but I don’t even get the option to hold in a queue, I just get a recording saying all representatives are busy, try again later.

Off work today so I start calling them 30 minutes before they even open and finally get through to a real live heavily accented person.

To her credit, she took care of it. I apologized to her in advance for being upset about this and tried very hard to be polite to her. I must have succeeded somewhat because she agreed to waive the reinstatement fee even though she did not have the fax I sent in Sunday and e-mailed me a letter stating my DL was valid to keep with me until the computer system shows the updated status.

What really pissed me off about this is that FL could have given me a reasonable amount of time to address this but they sent the letter out last Monday and suspended my DL the following Sunday at midnight. They have phone and e-mail contact information that they could have used along with the letter. And 4 business days for a letter to be delivered and time for a response is complete bullshit in any situation, especially when the mistake is at their end and I did not do any thing wrong.

Very aggravating situation. Glad that you got it solved.

Bad: Somebody at DMV really screwed up, to create this situation.

Good: It was resolved successfully (even though it should not have happened in the first place).

My impression of Florida DMV, having lived here for many years, excellent service. Especially when compared to other states where I have lived and had to deal with their departments: Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York.

Will this suspension end up on your record? Something else to consider because I've had to answer questions like "Has your DL ever been revoked or suspended?".

Glad you were able to get it taken care of. My wife wasn’t so lucky.

When our first child was born, my wife and I put her S2000 in storage and stoped paying the insurance. We had no idea you are supposed to turn the plate in. About a year and a half later, my wife got pulled over and found out her license had been suspended for not having insurance. Apparently, when you stop paying, the insurance company sends a note to the state saying so. The state then sends a note to the person asking for proof of insurance. We never received this and the state suspended her license unbeknownst to us.

We had two other cars with continuous coverage, her name was on the title of one of them and on both insurance policies. This didn’t matter. The state wouldn’t confirm whether or not they had the correct address. We could not straighten it out, so she had to go to court, pay the fine, and the judge withheld adjudication.

That's bad, OP, but here's one my wife encountered.

She worked with County Mental Health as a Patient Service Technician. One day a patient came in and said she no longer received Social Security.

My wife found that one of her co-workers had accidentally checked the box on a form that said the person had died.

Took my wife a year to get her re-born and back in the system.

flesheatingvirs, That is a good question. I have no idea.

V-Tail, I freely admit to not having any bases for comparison (probably fortunately). I grew up in PA outside of Philly and my first permanent duty station was in FL. Once I established residency in Fl I never changed it as the Navy moved me around so I have not had the pleasure of dealing with the various DMVs.

After this morning I decided to treat myself to my favorite micro brewery for lunch so I am in a much better mood now. Good beer, good food, and good company has helped put it into perspective. In the big scheme of things, while frustrating, it was pretty minor.

I still hate the bastards.

Just wondering if this kind of policy helps keep the number of un-insured motorist down.

Don't think Texas has this in place and many drive un-insured until they get caught. Well they also drive without a license as well.

Just wondering if it actually helps or is just BS.

quote:

Originally posted by Mustang-PaPa:
Just wondering if this kind of policy helps keep the number of un-insured motorist down.

Don't think Texas has this in place and many drive un-insured until they get caught. Well they also drive without a license as well.

Just wondering if it actually helps or is just BS.

From my experiences as an LEO in Texas - If you are involved in an accident and don't have a license, or, insurance - your license or privilege to drive is suspended. If you don't have a license to suspend, the state will assign you an 8 digit ID/DL number and mark it suspended.

quote:

If you don't have a license to suspend, the state will assign you an 8 digit ID/DL number and mark it suspended.

I love it!

Tell the Director about it, and how the process that caused your suspension shouldn't have happened in the first place and that the timing of the notice made it impossible for you to comply.

https://www.flhsmv.gov/about/contact-the-director/

Not in VA it doesn't
I have worked hundreds of motor vehicle accidents, and I would have swore as each year passed the number of uninsured motorists increased.

Plus VA has the option of opting out of motor vehicle insurance by paying 500 to a general fund

As far as I know it is still a thing but I could be wrong.

Just checked, it is still a thing
From DMV website:

Every person registering an uninsured motor vehicle shall pay a fee of $500 at the time of registration. Payment of this fee allows a motor vehicle owner to operate an uninsured motor vehicle; however, payment of this fee does not provide the motorist with any insurance coverage. The uninsured motorist remains personally liable if he or she is involved in an accident.

The fee is valid for twelve months but may be prorated for the unexpired portion of the registration period.

They sent me a notice saying my license was going to be suspended, the notice was very short and I'm sure it was suspended for a period. I had moved out of state temporarily for military duty and changed my insurance to Texas because it's significantly cheaper here. GEICO decided to notify the state of Florida that I no longer have Florida insurance. Called GEICO and the worthless bastards could notify Florida that I didn't have Florida insurance anymore but said they couldn't notify Florida that I have Texas insurance.

So I sent documentation to Tallahassee stating I was on military orders and included proof of Texas insurance. They never replied. I went online and looked up the status of my license and it said valid.

If only they were so persistent in pursuing people who actually do not have insurance...

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:

GEICO

I think that I have found your problem.

Michigan does not require license plates to be returned if the vehicle is not insured. In 2019 the estimate was that almost 60% of vehicles registered in the city of Detroit are uninsured.

Be glad that you are not here. Our Secretary of State is charged with all vehicle matters. Ms. Benson has screwed up the offices and has decried that all in person services will be by appointment only. Only problem is that appointments are two and three months out.

The solution to the problem. The usual Democratic Party solution "I need more money."

Here is a good Florida DMV one for you. I bought a motorcycle , cash, from a guy. Years ago. Registered it, drove it for years. Florida now allows you to store the vehicle title “electronically”, which I did. I thought it was convenient, plus I didn’t have to worry about losing a paper title. Just go online and for $2.50, you can print your title whenever you are ready to sell it. Well it’s time to register all my vehicles and I don’t get a renew letter for that one motorcycle. All my other three cars and a trailer I get the standard letter informing me it’s time to renew. I go online to the DMV website to renew and the motorcycle has vanished! No longer listed under my owned vehicles! It’s as if I have sold the motorcycle, it’s gone! Except , the motcycle is in my garage and I have driven it weekly for years.

I go to the DMV and tell them the story . They have to “investigate” for hours. Finally, they come back and tell me that some DMV office across the state has “unregistered” the motorcycle in my name, assigned the title to someone else. It’s basically been stolen from me. A few affidavits and statements and a few hours later and they finally assign the bike back in my name, and print me a new registration sticker.

Would you like the title to be kept electronically, they say? NO!!! Print that MFer now! And give it to me!

No more electronic title storage for me !!!!

What’s even worse was I had been driving the bike around for quite some time unregistered! If law enforcement had stopped me, they would have found a bike that belonged to someone else (allegedly) with my tag on it. That’s several arrest charges and an arrest down town and I couldn’t have done anything about it!

I traded in a truck . Cancelled the insurance and put it on the new vehicle . Dealership sat on the paperwork long enough that my license got flagged for having a vehicle with no insurance . I never got any kind of notice . Didn't find out for over two years when I went to renew my license and they wanted some ungodly penalty . The wife called the DMV and found the only person down there with a brain and she fixed it pretty easily . I was too pissed to deal with them .