Florida Law Says These States’ Driver Licenses Are No Longer Valid

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When laws are drafted by state legislatures, voted into law and signed by state governors, there are consequences. Some of them are, of course, in line with the intention of the new law. But some of the repercussions are not necessarily the intent of the legislation. Of course, those who wrote the law may or may not be concerned about how people react to their new restrictions on the state, but that’s rarely here nor there (except maybe during an election year).

The State of Florida, under Gov. Ron DeSantis and a supermajority in both houses of the state legislature, has voted several new laws over the last legislative session, some of which took effect as of July 1st.

Many of the new laws are controversial and are under judicial contest. However, one of them that took effect was SB 1718, which was promoted as a fix to illegal immigration in Florida.

I’m not going to get into the details of the new law and how it will affect Florida residents, industries and every other aspect of society. However, I do want to point out how it may inadvertently affect people who want to travel to the State of Florida.

After the law went into place, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles published a list of out-of-state license classes that are invalid in Florida.

They include:

• Connecticut licenses that indicate “Not For Federal Identification”
• Delaware licenses that indicate “Driving Privilege Only” or “Not Valid for Identification”
• Hawaii licenses that indicate “Limited Purpose Driver’s License” or “Limited Purpose Instruction Permit” or “Limited Purpose Provisional Driver’s License” or “Not Valid for use for official Federal purposes”
• Vermont licenses that indicate “Not for REAL ID Purposes Driver’s Privilege Card” or “Not for REAL ID Purposes Junior Driver’s Privilege Card” or “Not for REAL ID Purposes Learner’s Privilege Card”

If you have any of these licenses and are pulled over by the police in Florida, you will be cited for driving without a valid driver’s license.

While the licenses from Connecticut, Delaware and Vermont are specifically only issued to undocumented immigrants, Hawaii’s Limited Purpose licenses are issued if you move to Hawaii and transfer your out-of-state driver’s license to your new home. This means some U.S. citizens have one of these “verboten” licenses.

The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles even appears to be having problems interpreting the law, as some licenses from Rhode Island were originally included on the list, but have since been removed.

Florida will undoubtedly have to defend this law in court if they choose to issue citations to people who have these types of licenses.

But this leads to another question: if you can fly to Florida with one of these drivers licenses in your possession, will a company rent a car to you if Florida deems your driver’s license to be invalid? If so, what happens if you get a speeding ticket? Will you be arrested for driving without a license?

SB 1718 opens up many questions for people visiting Florida. While the law was intended to combat illegal immigration, the law is so vague that it could prevent people – even some U.S. citizens – from visiting the state. It’s impossible to know if this was intended or not.

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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary

Cover Photo: Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0