[sueintheusa]

Hi there.
I am a South African working in Florida on a 6 month working visa. About 2 weeks ago I rented a car for the day. The guy at the rental place asked to see my drivers licence and credit card. I gave him my South African drivers licence and credit card. He did not say a word to me that my licence was not accepted or legal to drive in Florida.

Then on my way to take the car back the next day, some woman crashed into me from behind. I had to move my car out the road, and when I got out to talk to this lady that crashed into me, she had drove off! So I had to call the police to get the accident report, for the insurace that I paid for at the rental place.
The cop asked for my licence and all that stuff. Then when I gave her my South African license she said it was illegal to drive with that licence, and gave me a citation.

Now my real question is what must I do now? There is no amount of how much the fine is on the ticket. I have tried to call the courthouse, but they keep telling me that my case is not in their system yet. It has been 2 weeks now, and from what I understand I only have 30 days to fix this! There is a box that says I must appear in court on March 30th. So should I just wait for that day and go to court? I don't know what to do? I thought of just asking some random cop I see in the road.

And I go back to South Africa on April 20th, so I really need to fix this, as I do not want any legal problems if I ever want to come back here.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
I am losing sleep over this! How big can the fine be? Or worse, could I get jail time??
Thanks.

[excon]

Hello sue:

Relax... Your court appearance is BEFORE you're leaving, so you ought to be able to take care of it BEFORE you go.

I'm not sure if you're guilty of anything. I certainly don't take the cops word. If you want to plead guilty, I'm sure you can do it at your court appearance...

No, there's no jail time...

excon