Florida Traffic Law

Any one who has ever plead guilty to a minor criminal offense realizes the huge black mark that it makes in today's computer age. People today can just do a search for "background check" and find hundreds of private companies willing to take their money to provide them with a little information on someone they are curious about. Unfortunately, what people find when they search is just the cover of the book - they don't bother to understand the circumstances of the offense which can't be discerned from a brief glance of the public record.  They read "theft" and they think "thief" rather than teenager acting on a dare. Florida has passed a law that allows people to clear up one criminal offense that has been dismissed or had adjudication withheld. This seems trivial to prosecutors, who often times argue that it is legalized lying, but for the person with the black mark an expungement can make the difference between getting a job and being un...

I can remember as a kid going out to the closest "fly-by-night" insurance company and getting the bare minimum insurance coverage that would make my car legal.  Heck, I didn't have much money but I had a car and I wanted to drive it - and did I. For probably the first 4 years of my driving life I spent nearly 100% of my money on my car.  I had to make it sound better, run faster, jack it up, bigger tires, and on and on.  And this was on a Gremlin!  It was one of those weird, rare Gremlins that had a V8 sitting under the hood and for the first two gears (it was only a three speed) it was quite quick.  I, fortunately, decided my life was going no where and joined the Army before I could cause any damage on the road, and that was a very good thing.  Nearly thirty years later I look back and wonder how I ever made it out of my teen years.  There are lots of reasons for this bewilderment and the thing I want to focus on here is the fact that I was under-i...

Recently, Orange County released the dispositions of thousands of traffic ticket cases from late 2009 - 2011. The error for not reporting these citation dispositions is not important. The concern is that the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, upon receipt, has done the due diligence and sent out suspension letters for those drivers that now meet the requirements for suspension. The good news is that there may be a way to undo the suspension. Often times past citations, especially those that cause a suspension, can be modified to avoid the suspension. Even if the suspension has already begun relief can be had by motion. When a suspension is being issued by the Department it will send out a letter notifying the driver of the impending suspension of driving privileges. It is best to seek an attorney to try and avoid the suspension as soon as the letter is received. However, there is no time frame for which this can be done. The probability of obtaining relief often depend...