After my arrest for driving under the influence in Florida, my driver’s license was suspended. It’s important to note that in Florida when you get a DUI, your license is automatically suspended for six months.
This license suspension is an administrative suspension imposed by the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles. This is an automatic suspension by the DMV and is completely separate from a suspension that may be handed down by the judge if you are convicted of driving under the influence.
You will have 10 days from the time you were issued the ticket to apply for what is called a Hardship or Business Purposes Only (BPO) license. It’s important that you apply for your hardship license immediately! I’ve gone ahead and written about this process, which you can read about here.
A driving privilege restricted to “business purposes only” means a driving privilege that is limited to any driving necessary to maintain livelihood, including driving to and from work, necessary on-the-job driving, driving for educational purposes, and driving for church and for medical purposes. – Florida Statute 322.271
Once your ten-day grace period is up, you are no longer legally allowed to drive, so be prepared to have someone drive you around or pay for rideshare services like Uber and Lyft.
In order to receive a hardship license that allows you to drive for work purposes, medical appointments, religious services, and groceries, you must sign up for, attend, and successfully complete DUI school. You can obtain your hardship before you have completed these classes, but if you do not complete them, your license will remain suspended until they are complete.
In the county where I live, DUI school is run by a non-profit organization called the Florida Safety Council – previously known as the United Safety Council.
What I write about below is my experience with the DUI class and subsequent services provided by the Florida Safety Council. Your experience with this organization may differ from mine.
For a first-time DUI in Florida, you are required to take a DUI Level-1 First Offender course, which is a 12-hour course, taught in person over the course of two days. In order to register to attend the course, you must first go through a two-hour “registration.”
DUI class registration at the Florida Safety Council didn’t take me two hours, but was interesting, to say the least. After making an appointment, I drove to the office where I had to pay close to $400 for the class itself, a printout of my driver’s record, and since I used a credit card – a credit card processing fee.
Then I was given what I would describe as a “personality test,” there were dozens upon dozens of questions on laminated sheets of paper that I had to provide answers to on an answer key. The type of questions asked was similar to, “Do you often drive above the speed limit?” “Do you sometimes feel angry when you’re stuck behind a slow driver?”
The questions were all about driving habits, presumably to determine if one is an aggressive driver.
None of them revolved around drinking and driving! Which made no sense.
I was told that the purpose of the questions is to determine what kind of a risk you are to other motorists and the answers would be used to see if you need additional “treatment” in addition to the DUI school.
More on “additional treatment” later.
I completed the test, scheduled my DUI classes, and left with copies of the paperwork that I needed to send along to the department that grants hardship licenses to provide proof that I signed up for the class.
Florida Safety Council DUI School Day 1
I arrived at the Florida Safety Council 30-minutes prior to the start of class, as it was noted at registration and also on the paperwork that if you are late, you will not be allowed to attend and you will need to re-register and pay all the fees again.
Class started at 9 am and there were about seven people in the class – including one person who brought their dog, their laptop, Bluetooth speaker, and who would go on to conduct business during the class.
We sat in the classroom waiting for the instructor to show up.
9:10 am came, no instructor.
9:20 am came, no instructor.
9:30 am came and someone comes in and says, “Sorry, the instructor scheduled for your class didn’t know he had a class scheduled for today. We’re getting someone from another location to come in, but she is an hour away.”
10:00 am came and a woman enters the room, introduced herself, and started talking about the class. Five minutes later the original instructor shows up and apologizes for being late.
For the five hours – with an hour for lunch – he talked about himself, his addiction to drugs and alcohol during the 1970s and 1980s, and touched very little on anything to do with driving under the influence.
We were able to go home at 4 pm.
Florida Safety Council DUI School Day 2
Next week, was the second of the two-day DUI school I had to attend. Once again, I arrived 30 minutes ahead of time, while others in the class entered the classroom after class started without being told to leave (as we were verbally instructed would happen, as well in written form on our registration papers).
The man, who turns out runs a sign shop, came once again with his dog, laptop, Bluetooth speaker, and was wearing a t-shirt that let all of us know that Jesus recommended he not be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The instructor did finally touch on the evils of alcohol and the effects it has on the body during this class – a far different approach than day 1 when none of that was discussed even though we’re sitting through a DUI class.
We ended up watching several videos produced in the 1980s about drinking and driving. With all the money the organization brings in from these classes across the state, you would think that there would be money in the budget to update 30+-year-old instructional videos, but no.
The instructor actually joked about the videos before he played them.
We were able to go home around 3:30 pm putting a wrap on the 12-hour DUI course.
Before leaving, we were told that each of us would be called to schedule an “exit interview” where we would meet with a counselor who will discuss the results of the test taken at registration.
It would be during that interview that any “next steps” which may include additional counseling or rehab would be discussed. A certificate of completion would be provided and they would also notify the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles that the classes have successfully been completed so the driver’s record could be noted appropriately.
It was about three weeks later when I would have the meeting, once again at the Florida Safety Council, with a counselor. The meeting consisted of me telling her whether or not I consider myself a drinker, how often I drink, what happened on the night of my DUI, my work history, etc.
She told me that “the answers you put down on the test don’t indicate you’re an aggressive driver or need additional counseling, however, since your BAC was 0.248, you automatically have to attend counseling sessions.”
These counseling sessions would be conducted by another organization that deals with drug and alcohol abuse and are on the “recommended list” provided to me by the Florida Safety Council.
In order to get my license back after the administrative suspension period, these sessions must be completed. So the next step is to pick a provider and sign up.
Due to COVID-19, all the providers on the list were doing virtual sessions. I chose one at random, which was Lifestance Health – formerly known as Florida Behavioral Health. I called the office to set everything up and was scheduled first for a meeting with the director of the program which handles DUI and addiction cases.
This meeting lasted about an hour where I had to tell her about the events leading up to my DUI and she asked a couple of questions which I guess were thrown in there to gauge my mental state. She then made the determination that I had to attend 15 weekly sessions at the cost of $25 each.
How did she determine the magic number 15?
That’s a good question.
Read on about my experience with Lifestance Health after a DUI in Florida