can't find record of traffic citations Forum

[citykitty]

Some schools seem to want all citations including traffic that had fines of over $100, which would be just about everything. I want to disclose, but the problem is that I don't remember exactly how many tickets, when they were issued, or what they were for. I contacted the state DMV, but since I haven't lived there in a long time, my driving record has been purged. Obviously, I need to say something, but what? Probably between 3 and 6? tickets. Mostly speeding, but I think there was one for following too closely and one for an expired tag.

[javancho]

The DMV might purge records, but not the courts. Contact all the municipal courts where you have lived and ask for a "Certified Disposition" of your records. It's very annoying because there is no central database that keeps these records, so you have to contact each courthouse.

[EricBerry]

I went to the DMV and got what little info they had. I also went to the moving violations bureau at the courthouse and got a nondescriptive list of my traffic violations. I sent this info in and the school seemed satisfied.

[citykitty]

I don't even know the municipalities where I received the tickets. I think all of the speeding tickets would have been in rural counties on state highways. Should I literally call every county that I may have driven through?

[TommyK]

If you have a unique name, use pipl.com. It may not work in every situation, but it worked in mine. I was able to pull up both speeding tickets I had received. pipl.com searches the deep web and pulls back information of you. It will pull back social networking sites, pictures of you, court documents, speeding tickets and ton of other stuff. Worth a shot, at least.

[javancho]

I don't even know the municipalities where I received the tickets. I think all of the speeding tickets would have been in rural counties on state highways. Should I literally call every county that I may have driven through?

Well, you are going to have to do this and much more for the Character and Fitness examination, so you might as well start now. Actually, this is part of your C+F because the answers you provide now will be analyzed later on.
Many states are starting to compile court data into online databases. Maybe your state has such a system in place and you can look up your name. Be careful, however, because many of these databases contain incomplete data. They are just a good way to get started.

[too old for this sh*]

If you have a unique name, use pipl.com. It may not work in every situation, but it worked in mine. I was able to pull up both speeding tickets I had received. pipl.com searches the deep web and pulls back information of you. It will pull back social networking sites, pictures of you, court documents, speeding tickets and ton of other stuff. Worth a shot, at least.

not all jurisdictions, even in this day and age, are online...and of those that are, not everything older than a few years may even be viewable. I would not even trust a Lexis search to have found everything, much less some dot com that serves as a garbage collector.

Oh, and I say this not only as someone who may have to go back and track citations going back to Reagan's first term but also as someone who has worked in the criminal defense realm for close to a quarter century and routinely does deep background searches on clients in a state with 254 counties...many of which are NOT online.

[kch3684]

I had this problem, I had an idea of when the dates were and I knew that I paid them so when I sent the school my info I told them what I had done to find the records, that I was unable to except for the most recent, then summarized the dates, what I was pulled over for (speeding) and that the citation was paid. They were fine with that.

[TommyK]

If you have a unique name, use pipl.com. It may not work in every situation, but it worked in mine. I was able to pull up both speeding tickets I had received. pipl.com searches the deep web and pulls back information of you. It will pull back social networking sites, pictures of you, court documents, speeding tickets and ton of other stuff. Worth a shot, at least.

not all jurisdictions, even in this day and age, are online...and of those that are, not everything older than a few years may even be viewable. I would not even trust a Lexis search to have found everything, much less some dot com that serves as a garbage collector.

Oh, and I say this not only as someone who may have to go back and track citations going back to Reagan's first term but also as someone who has worked in the criminal defense realm for close to a quarter century and routinely does deep background searches on clients in a state with 254 counties...many of which are NOT online.

Yeah, you're right... if there's not 100% guarantee OP will find everything, there's absolutely no value in attempting.

[too old for this sh*]

If you have a unique name, use pipl.com. It may not work in every situation, but it worked in mine. I was able to pull up both speeding tickets I had received. pipl.com searches the deep web and pulls back information of you. It will pull back social networking sites, pictures of you, court documents, speeding tickets and ton of other stuff. Worth a shot, at least.

not all jurisdictions, even in this day and age, are online...and of those that are, not everything older than a few years may even be viewable. I would not even trust a Lexis search to have found everything, much less some dot com that serves as a garbage collector.

Oh, and I say this not only as someone who may have to go back and track citations going back to Reagan's first term but also as someone who has worked in the criminal defense realm for close to a quarter century and routinely does deep background searches on clients in a state with 254 counties...many of which are NOT online.

Yeah, you're right... if there's not 100% guarantee OP will find everything, there's absolutely no value in attempting.

gotta loooooove today's youth that believe in only one extreme or the other...but what else should be expected from a generation that seems to default to everything being on the interwebz.

[LSATWIZ]

You can also just disclose to the best of your memory, and mention the lack of records. As long as nothing is egregiously different (you left off that driving through a stop sign in a school zone that killed a six year old), I am sure nobody will be upset with you.

[citykitty]

My name is extremely common. My most recent ticket in that state is at least 10 or 11 years old. The state has no record of me ever having had a license there. You're right that the individual courts may have the data, so I might be able to track that down for the expired tag and the following too closely citations (I think I remember where those occurred), but as for the speeding tickets, I'm at a loss other than to say that I had a few tickets and am unable to locate the records.

Not sure what I'll do when it comes time for the BAR application, since the state I'm looking to practice in wants details of all tickets over $100 and a copy of my driving record, which doesn't exist.

[too old for this sh*]

My name is extremely common. My most recent ticket in that state is at least 10 or 11 years old. The state has no record of me ever having had a license there. You're right that the individual courts may have the data, so I might be able to track that down for the expired tag and the following too closely citations (I think I remember where those occurred), but as for the speeding tickets, I'm at a loss other than to say that I had a few tickets and am unable to locate the records.

Not sure what I'll do when it comes time for the BAR application, since the state I'm looking to practice in wants details of all tickets over $100 and a copy of my driving record, which doesn't exist.

Attach the written response you got back from the agency that indicates that, after a review of the records of the agency, no identifiable record could be found for you using the information that you provided (ie. name, DOB, DL#).

The other thing to ensure is that the request dealt with the FULL record since many licensing agencies generate a three or five year record as the usual document reviewed by the courts when determining whether someone may be eligible for defensive driving (or for other sentencing considerations).

[2011Law]

What happens if you have two speeding tickets (just going about 15 mph over the limit) and never mentioned them in your applications? Will the school find out and really not accept you because of it?

[eminem]

Your auto insurance company is also a good source of information. They found several citations that weren't revealed by a DMV check and a commercial background check website.

[citykitty]

My name is extremely common. My most recent ticket in that state is at least 10 or 11 years old. The state has no record of me ever having had a license there. You're right that the individual courts may have the data, so I might be able to track that down for the expired tag and the following too closely citations (I think I remember where those occurred), but as for the speeding tickets, I'm at a loss other than to say that I had a few tickets and am unable to locate the records.

Not sure what I'll do when it comes time for the BAR application, since the state I'm looking to practice in wants details of all tickets over $100 and a copy of my driving record, which doesn't exist.

Attach the written response you got back from the agency that indicates that, after a review of the records of the agency, no identifiable record could be found for you using the information that you provided (ie. name, DOB, DL#).

The other thing to ensure is that the request dealt with the FULL record since many licensing agencies generate a three or five year record as the usual document reviewed by the courts when determining whether someone may be eligible for defensive driving (or for other sentencing considerations).

I'm fairly certain it did. I called, because I was unable to use the online or mail in form, because I don't currently have a DL in that state. Minor traffic violations disappear for everyone after 10 years, but things like DUIs stay forever. At least, that's what the website and lady on the phone said. Since I didn't have anything major, the record was gone.

I contacted one municipality where I thought I had a following too closely citation, and they had it. Called another municipality where I'm pretty sure I had expired tags and maybe a speeding ticket, and they have no record of it. The lady said they switched to a new system and lots of data was lost.

I'm going to try my insurance company next.

ETA: Insurance company was a bust. They only have the past 7 years of data, and all my tickets are prior to that. I want to pull out all my hair! AUGH!

[TommyK]

gotta loooooove today's youth that believe in only one extreme or the other...but what else should be expected from a generation that seems to default to everything being on the interwebz.

Um, okay. Look grandma, the fact of the matter is that the Internet is a pretty useful resource. It looks like it won't be that helpful in the OP's case, but in many cases it will be. And that's what I said in my original post:

"]If you have a unique name, use pipl.com. It may not work in every situation, but it worked in mine. I was able to pull up both speeding tickets I had received.

And FWIW, these speeding tickets were from 2001 and 2004.

At no point did I suggest that you should only use this method. I still maintain it's useful in many cases.

[too old for this sh*]

My name is extremely common. My most recent ticket in that state is at least 10 or 11 years old. The state has no record of me ever having had a license there. You're right that the individual courts may have the data, so I might be able to track that down for the expired tag and the following too closely citations (I think I remember where those occurred), but as for the speeding tickets, I'm at a loss other than to say that I had a few tickets and am unable to locate the records.

Not sure what I'll do when it comes time for the BAR application, since the state I'm looking to practice in wants details of all tickets over $100 and a copy of my driving record, which doesn't exist.

Attach the written response you got back from the agency that indicates that, after a review of the records of the agency, no identifiable record could be found for you using the information that you provided (ie. name, DOB, DL#).

The other thing to ensure is that the request dealt with the FULL record since many licensing agencies generate a three or five year record as the usual document reviewed by the courts when determining whether someone may be eligible for defensive driving (or for other sentencing considerations).

I'm fairly certain it did. I called, because I was unable to use the online or mail in form, because I don't currently have a DL in that state. Minor traffic violations disappear for everyone after 10 years, but things like DUIs stay forever. At least, that's what the website and lady on the phone said. Since I didn't have anything major, the record was gone.

I contacted one municipality where I thought I had a following too closely citation, and they had it. Called another municipality where I'm pretty sure I had expired tags and maybe a speeding ticket, and they have no record of it. The lady said they switched to a new system and lots of data was lost.

I'm going to try my insurance company next.

ETA: Insurance company was a bust. They only have the past 7 years of data, and all my tickets are prior to that. I want to pull out all my hair! AUGH!

Phone calls ARE NOT sufficient to corroborate no record exists. DO IT IN WRITING. Not only does it go to a desk that actually digs below the first level of the database but you will also have a written response of 'no record' if they truly have purged all the antique crap.

As an example, we have clients with DWI histories where we can get a DPS printout that shows the entirety of their history even though the DPS databases have been purged of a lot of the actual documents...I even had a city in the Panhandle that provided us with an offense report in a case that was 'expunged' nearly 20 years ago AND NOTED THE DATE OF THE EXPUNCTION and the name of the judge that signed off on it. It did not have the client's name but it was clearly dealing with our client...

Trust me when I tell you that few people realize JUST how much stuff can be sourced on a properly worded written request...