Florida’s New Law Forces Bad Drivers Back To School

Florida bad drivers take note; beginning January 2010, some of the state’s worst drivers will be sent back to driving school. A new state law will cause any motorist convicted of three crash-related moving violations over a three-year period to take a required course which includes a driving test for the offender to pass.

This past June, Governor Charlie Christ signed a bill that will go into effect January 2010.

To date, more than 3,200 drivers have been identified, with the statistics showing that these drivers are most likely to be white men, age 40 or younger, and are clustered in the state’s urban areas. While men make up 52 percent of the drivers, they account for 64 percent of these bad drivers. And the accident-prone should know this: Crashes in 2008 and 2009 will count.

Bad drivers are all around us, wherever you may be travelling. State Sen. Don Gaetz was driving down U.S. 98 in Northwest Florida when he saw another driver reading a newspaper while going 65 mph.

“I think there are some people who just don’t take driving that seriously,” said Gaetz, R-Niceville.

Thanks to Gaetz, more drivers in Florida will have to pay more attention. Or it could cost them a lot of money, and hopefully this will be the needed incentive for bad drivers to start driving more responsibly.