Out of State License and California Traffic Violators School

We handle a lot of tickets in Southern California and often those are for out of state drivers. If there are no other options, we generally recommend having the judge order California Traffic Violators School (Traffic School, "TS") even though the driver lives out of state.

Reciprocal Agreements Among the States.

These days with all the computer wizardry that our local governments have at their disposal, out of state drivers will find citations received in California winding up on their driving record in their home state (outside of California). This is primarily due to reciprocal agreements that exist among the state. For example, the Driver’s License Compact (DLC) is an agreement between nearly every state to report traffic violations out of state to the licensing authority in the driver’s home state. 

The following states are not members of the DLC: Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, Tennessee, and Wisconsin, However, most state also participate in the National Driver Register (NDR), a national database for tracking drivers with serious offenses like DUIs or license revocations. A check of the NDR may occur when applying for a license, and your application could be denied if you are flagged as a problem driver. And I believe some states us the NDR to update the driving records of their in state drivers.

In addition, I believe insurance companies have a means of getting all violations in all states and then they will tag their insureds with those violations whether they are in their home state of not. I'm not sure how they do this or to what extent they do this, but I am trying to get more information in that regard (leave a comment if you have some insight on that), Insurance companies are in the business of measure risk so it doesn't matter where the ticket occurred to them, they just want to know if an insured had received any tickets. 

California Traffic School

So as to insurance, California traffic school will keep a moving violation confidential and insurance will not see it regardless of the state where the drivers lives or is licensed, which is one reason we recommend out of state drivers to complete California traffic school. Likewise if the other state is part of a reciprocal Agreement, again the California ticket will remain confidential when California TS is completed. 

So on both fronts the out state driver is protected by California Traffic school. Make sure the school is certified by the DMV and state of California, and make sure to advise the school as to the county where the ticket was written so the School can send the proof of completion ("POC") to the proper court. And print out the POC for your own records. It's best to do the school online, which can be done on your phone. It's inexpensive and easy. Get it done. 

Note that if you are out of state just getting to court for arraignment and then trial may be super difficult. Call us and we can take care of that for you.