Today was a very good day. For the first time since 2013 I am now a fully legal Florida driver! I waited this long because it was quite expensive and I didn't really need to dive that much. I could have gotten my license back around a year ago but at that time I had all the court costs and classes to pay. That significantly depleted my savings so before I go spending thousands more I had to build my reserve back up. I recently got to the point where my savings were enough that I could take this hit and still feel comfortable.
I started the process 2 weeks ago. I went to the DMV to get instructions on what I needed to do. If you show up bright and early (like 6:30 am) and wait until they open at 8:15, it's not so bad and I wasn't stuck there all day. They told me what needed to be done and I got on it. They said I needed the SR-22 that Scotch talked about above but it turns out I needed even more liability than that so I had to get FR-44. Thankfully it wasn't 3k but it was still a lot. The law says I need that policy for 2 years after my conviction. Fortunately all of last counts even though I didn't have a license. So I bought this FR-44 for 6 months and will have to buy it once more in October before I can downgrade to the cheaper SR-22. I will then need the SR-22 for a year and after that I can go back to a normal policy. A funny thing is that Geico sends me junk mail almost weekly. When I called them about getting the FR-44 they said they didn't want to insure me cause of my awful record. So they send me all this mail for years saying they want me back and then when I finally am willing to come back they don't want me. Hah. So I went to some broker and got insurance from some rando company called Foremost. Whatever, it will do fine for a year.
Then I had to go get that drunkard Interlock device installed in the car. I called a bunch of them and found the cheapest. Those companies don't seem like the most professional seeing how I was able to bargain them down. The one I went with gave me a very cheap price in comparison to the others but of course when I actually got to the garage to have it installed they wanted more. I sat on the phone with them for like 2 hours while at the garage and they said that I should just pay what the garage asked and then when I go in for the monthly maintenance they will credit the extra money to the monthly fees. Not so sure if that is actually going to happen but we'll see when I go back in May.
The device itself is kinda finicky. Having used it for a couple days now I have a bunch of questions for my May visit to the shop. My main concern is making sure that a reading that does not process properly is not marked down as a fail. Sometimes it will make me take the test twice because the first one didn't register and that is concerning.
So I got the very expensive insurance last Tuesday and then got the expensive Interlock on Friday and then went back to the DMV today. Once again I got there 2 hours before opening and was the 7th person in line. By the time it opened at 8:15 there were well over 100 people in the line. I had all the proper documents and was able to get my license! Of course the DMV charged another big fine but I'm just happy to have my license back. Until October I have a license that requires me to only drive a car with an Interlock. In 6 months I will go back to the DMV after I get the Interlock taken out and I will have a completely normal license.
So a very good but also very expensive couple of weeks. Ever since around 8.2016 when I finally decided to take care of all this I have tried not to drive at all. There have been instances, like I talked about last month, where I did drive and it really freaked me out. Even going the 2 miles to the grocery store was stressful. I am happy to be fully legal now and have all those worries behind me.