If your Florida license has been suspended and you don’t know why, you’re part of the over 4 million other Florida drivers who are experiencing the same issue. According to the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (DHSMV), approximately 30 percent of Florida drivers have suspended or revoked licenses. Don’t panic though; help is available.

What to do

We asked David Haenel, an attorney based on Florida’s west coast whose practice focuses on Florida suspended license issues, to provide some guidance on what Florida drivers should do when their licenses have been suspended. Here’s what he said:

Well, obviously the first thing they shouldn’t do is drive. They need to find out what it is that’s suspending them and where it is that’s suspending them. There are a lot of good websites out there that they can use to find this information. Our website, www.fightyoursuspension.com, has a link where they can check the status of your driver's license. They can put their driver's license number into a little box and they will find out where they’re suspended from if it’s within the state of Florida. That is a very good first step.

If it’s the result of a ticket, for example, then what will end up happening is the clerk’s office phone number will be provided on there and that’ll give them an opportunity to contact the clerk in that particular county to find out what must be done to clear up the problem.

Police officers have a lot of discretion

According to Haenel, police officers have a great deal of discretion of how to handle suspended license situations – some may think a little too much. He explained, “People have to realize that if you get pulled over with a suspended license, the officer has discretion on how to handle the situation. The officer could issue you a ticket with a court date and say, ‘Okay, go to court,’ or the officer could say, ‘I’m going to arrest you.’ If that happens, the next thing you know, you’re ending up in jail for a simple unpaid ticket such as a seat belt violation. As you accumulate more of these ‘driving while license suspended’ charges, it has an absolute snowball effect.”

Haenel said that he runs into this on a daily basis where somebody will just pay off some driving while license suspended citations and the next thing you know, they’re habitual traffic offenders and they’re facing a felony for paying tickets like they thought they were supposed to do!

If your license has been suspended in Florida, contact an attorney whose practice focuses on license suspension issues. Click here, to contact a Florida criminal attorney.