Driving Record

Your driving record, depending on the state is normally maintained by the DMV for approximately 10 years.  In today's day and age your driving record is becoming more and more important as far as employment background checks, and qualification for certain activities like crossing the border to Canada or adopting a child, etc...  The irony is that your driving record is becoming so heavily scrutinized while at the same time its becoming easier than ever to be wrongfully charged with a violation.

Once you are charged its nearly impossible to get the DMV to clean your driving record even if the courts dismiss the case and/or you are proven innocent.

Driving records can be tainted by having one glass of wine with dinner and driving around the block to go home from your neighbor's house.  Ask the millions of Americans that get wrongfully accused of this everyday.  The extreme laws in effect today having to do with such low BAC's like 0.08 is a political maneuver by your state to generate revenue.  The federal government will allocate more money to each state that enacts the 0.08 BAC law, while the ones that keep the 0.10 BAC law don't get the extra funding.  Statistics prove that drivers that have a BAC of 0.08 or below are safer than a driver traveling at 15 MPH over the posted speed limit.  A driving record containing a speeding violation is not even considered "bad."  

Did you know that the organization called MADD lobbied to congress to have the term "alcohol related incident" defined as anyone having any measurable amount of alcohol in their system involved in the incident.  That means that someone could be asleep in their parked car with a measurable amount of alcohol and a sober driver could hit them in a parking lot and that accident is considered alcohol related even though the person driving and the cause of the accident was stone cold sober.  Even with the twisting of statistics like that and by other means the incidence of alcohol related fatalities of drivers with BAC's of 0.08 or lower has steadily fallen since 1996. 

Your driving record is something to study research and learn about especially if you have been convicted of a DUI offense.  It is possible to clean and start fresh if you take the right steps. The DUI Information Association has put together a self help manual to explain the steps you need to take and what you can do.  Learn more at our DUI home page.