Is that a speeding ticket or a murder charge?

October 25, 2005 6:45 PM

California Driving Record: How the heck do I read it?

I got my driving record from CA DMV as a way to edu-ma-cate myself about what's on my record before I go insurance hunting. I have one violation on the record, but I have no idea what it means. The line looks a little like this:

         VIOL/TT     CONV/DT     SEC/VIOL    DTKT/NO          DISP     COURT
         01-01-05    01-05-05    XX                                    COLO 

So I can infer that the first two fields are the violation date and the conviction date. The third field (SEC/VIOL) must be the violation code itself (XX is actually two integers, forgive the obscuration), and COURT refers to the court I was convicted in (this was in my former residency of Colorado)...

But how do I know what the hell the conviction was? To be honest, I can't remember what happened on that date, if it was a speeding ticket or something else... and if it was a speeding ticket, what "grade" it was (5 over, 30 over)... how do I look up the code? Does California translate the offense to their code-numbering system, or should I be looking in the Colorado books for it?

posted by symphonik to Law & Government (1 answer total)

I just got a copy of my CA driving record, and the sec/viol was waay longer than two digits. I looked up my violation here, by googling "California Vehicle Code".
If your xx isn't there, try Colorado's.
posted by clh at 8:38 PM on October 25, 2005