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Florida Drivers to Enter Digital Age

December 10th, 2013 by Mike Vasilinda

If you are stopped by a police officer for speeding or anything else, one of the first requests you’ll hear is “ show me your proof of insurance.”  Usually the paper card is in your wallet or lost somewhere in your glove compartment, but soon, you may be able to keep that proof on your phone.

At any given time, as many a million drivers in Florida are on the road without insurance. Decades ago, the state made it a ticket able offense not to carry proof your car is insured. The fine is a hundred dollars..It drops to ten if you prove you were insured when you were stopped.

“ Any comments or discussion? Hearing none, the motion carries.” said Governor Rick Scott.   With a vote by the Governor and Cabinet, Florida will become the eighth state to step into the electronic age by allowing motorists to carry proof of insurance on their smart phones. Highway Safety Director Julie Jones told reporters afterward “This way you have proof of insurance no matter what vehicle you are driving.”

Getting ticketed for not having having that little insurance card made news this past year when it was learned state troopers gave out bogus tickets to speeding lawmakers..citing them for not having insurance instead of speeding

There is one drawback to the proposal, if you hand your device out the window to the officer, and it falls you’re responsible, not the officer.

You can scan the form into your phone, take a picture, or download it from your insurance company. Next on the horizon…digital drivers licenses.

Highway Safety’s Jones says a pilot project is underway to allow digital licenses. “The fraud issue is key to the drivers license. We will have to figure out how to encrypt it, and then have some kind of a smart phone bump, maybe, to validate that it is indeed an encrypted drivers license” says Jones.

New digital license could be out on the road and in your phone by the middle of 2015.

326 thousand tickets were written for failure to provide proof of insurance last year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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