After a consultation with a client today I realized there is some fundamental unfairness with financial responsibility suspensions. First of all, let me explain what kind of suspension this is. Generally speaking, in most circumstances, this is a suspension put on a person’s license because they got into an accident and did not have sufficient insurance to cover the other parties damages; and the injured party has basically put a lien on the license for those damages.
So this seems like a fair practice, but the problem is the other party holds all the cards and is the only person who can release this lien. They can either demand payment in full or allow the uninsured party to make payments and release the lien. Even this seems relatively fair……but the part that bothers me is that this is a type of suspension that there is no hardship license available for. What is a hardship license? This is a license that allows you to basically drive for work purposes only. You would think that you would want a person who owes money to be allowed to go to work to earn money to pay back the injured party.
Here is the really unfair part. Most other suspensions allow you to get a hardship license after some period of time. You can be on a 5 year habitual traffic violator suspension and get a hardship license after a year. You can be on a DUI suspension and get a hardship license after either 30 or 90 days depending on whether you gave a breath sample or not. You can be on a 2 year drug suspension and get a hardship license after a year, and on and on.
In my opinion a financial responsibility suspension should be on that list which allows a hardship license so the person can maintain a job and start paying back the injured party. Instead, my client is now facing criminal charges because he got caught driving on his financial responsibility suspension.
If you have been caught driving on a suspended license and you would like more information about my firm or hiring a Palm Beach County Traffic Attorney, you can visit us at www.dontpaythatticket.com or call us directly at 561-989-9999.
