Why would you need to go to the used car dealership? Your family member who was dumb enough to sign for you is on the hook for the car. You can continue to pay them back for it or not. End of story.

To get the tag. They already paid for it. I'm still going to pay them back, as previously agreed.

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What do you need the tag for? (This might be a state specific thing I'm not aware of)

I just remember reading about it being illegal to possess one without it assigned to a vehicle? Or something

I see. I recommend confirming the requirements first before you do anything.

If you already have a plate, you should be able to have it assigned to the new car. But this is immaterial if the car is totaled. A car doesn’t need to be registered to “exist” (which is won’t for much longer anyway); it needs to be registered for you to drive it on public roads. Which you can no longer do.

Yeah its registered. I had been using the temp paper tag. Then they called me yesterday telling me I can pick it up. The accident was 3 days ago

The dealer doesn’t want your tag, but the DMV does. If you don’t complete the process to transfer the tag to your next car, you are legally required to return it to the Florida DMV, either in person or by mail.

Your license can be suspended if you don’t do it within 30 days.

I see a lot of random details, but no clear misunderstanding on your part. What are you even asking for here?

Point out my biggest mistake here. Feel free to choose a couple. Was it assuming that my employer health insurance would be active and to take their word for it? Insuring a 15 year old car (with issues) beyond what's legally required? Full coverage would have been $460 a month. Choosing to sign a new lease an hour away from a job I had just started because it's what the girlfriend wanted without any base facts as to why? Entering into a verbal trust payback system for said car I had zero opinion on?

Or is it going to be the seemingly inevitable 3hour drive to pick up a car license plate that I cannot outfit and will just have to mail it back? Looking at Uber costs now because, for whatever reason, they cannot mail the plate to me, even if I paid 3x the postage cost.

Health insurance. Any lurkers here please note this. GET HEALTH INSURANCE. You may think you’re in perfect health but you never can predict an accident like this. A week long hospital stay is NOT going to be cheap.

If they are in that much of a perfect health, I usually point out HSA and how they work and are quite literally the strongest kind of investment account you could possibly have. And they only get better if you truly don't need to touch it and are able to max the HSA limit.

$460 a month tells me you have a pile of other issues.

I strongly suspect you need a job close to home and to not be driving at all.

Other issues - vandalised car claim that paid out 15k. Police involved etc

Several seizures that revoked my license for 3 years

Otherwise, have been driving for 11 years without a single infraction, warning, criminal charge, or civil suit of any kind. Until the event I refrenced in OP.

I do have some heavy identity theft though. I ordered an updated CLUE report to verify the only claims present are valid

I would look for work elsewhere but I loveeeeeee my job so much 🥺🥺

Someone already commented with the information you need, so my input here is just to keep your information targeted.

I think you (hopefully) learned a lot of lessons here, but ultimately your question seems to largely be “I have a plate that’s coming to the dealer for a car that was already totaled— do I need to actually go get it and give it back to the DMV or can I have the dealer send it back?”

The rest of the information is just kind of meaningless to us and you. If you need to know about anything you could do about health insurance, then ask that.

Just as an aside, it might be that your coverage is retroactive to when you signed up/we’re hired so I would double check that.

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If it had unsafe tires it might have been on the dealership to put on safe ones before selling. But you'll need help from a lawyer (injury or automotive maybe?). I doubt Florida has any such consumer protections.