One ignored traffic ticket in another state can cost you your Texas driver license. How the Non-Resident Violator Compact works — and how to handle a ticket without a conviction.
A Texas driver license holder can lose his or her driver license without getting a single violation of any kind in the entire state of Texas. How? Getting a single ticket outside of Texas and failing to appear in court or otherwise handle the ticket.
Getting a traffic ticket outside of your home state can feel more stressful and upsetting than normal. You face a legal situation more intimidatingly unfamiliar to you than your own state’s. Many people are preoccupied during their travels and end up forgetting they got the ticket or losing it altogether. Ultimately, they do nothing about it. Unlike Las Vegas, that ticket doesn’t stay forgotten.
A letter from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) may bear the bad news. Sometimes, a traffic stop will deliver a shocking new charge. Regardless of how it happens, the driver faces the prospect of losing a driver license.
It may have already caused the loss of your driver license, meaning you cannot drive legally at all. Driving, even perfectly, means risking a charge of driving while license invalid.
If you are fortunate enough to have an opportunity to fix the problem before losing your driver license, you should take action as early as possible.
DPS receives reports from almost all other states in the USA about such tickets through the Non-Resident Violator Compact (NRVC). A compact is an agreement amongst states. The NRVC allows states to share data about unresolved traffic ticket cases. Member states cooperate with each other by taking administrative action against a licensee who has an unresolved “violation” in another state. When a Texas licensee fails to appear for an out-of-state ticket or fails to pay what is owed in that state, it triggers action by the NRVC.
Unfortunately, DPS does not make it easy to find the details of an out-of-state ticket. They offer no online resource to search for your NRVC ticket. Instead, you have to contact DPS directly by telephone (512-424-2600) or email (Customerservicedl@dps.texas.gov).
It’s not all bad news. You may have already benefitted from the compact. Most people are not aware that arrests are authorized for traffic tickets under Texas (and other states’) laws, but the compact discourages such actions. This allows interstate drivers to leave a traffic stop by simply signing a promise to appear for court, rather than posting bail or getting arrested. Failing to appear as promised triggers the provisions of the NRVC.
Importantly, you need to understand that courts and DPS will try to tell you the only thing you can do is pay the ticket, and they describe it as a debt you owe. They apparently hate telling you about your right to contest the ticket. DPS officials make it very plain they think you are guilty as charged, even without a trial. That’s just wrong. Don’t fall for their “advice.”
The states involved in the compact have a great deal of financial incentive to operate like this. Not only does the court where the ticket is pending receive money, DPS is certainly happy to accept the $100.00 reinstatement fee it collects. In fact, DPS will hold your driver license hostage forever for that $100.00.
Unfortunately, the reinstatement fee is pretty much unavoidable. You do have control over your choice to pay or not pay the traffic ticket. Avoiding the long-term harm of a conviction by getting legal help almost certainly will be more valuable than the money you think you are saving by merely paying the ticket.
If you do what DPS tells you about handling your ticket, you could solve the temporary problem of a pending ticket by creating the permanent problem of a conviction. While paying the ticket can get you relief from the NRVC, it won’t help your driving record.
That’s because Texas and most other states are participants in the Driver License Compact, a second interstate agreement that shares convictions. That other state will report the conviction to Texas, and DPS will make it a permanent part of your driving record so you don’t get away with anything AND you get hammered at every opportunity.
Get ready for higher insurance rates for years when that happens. If you are unlucky enough to have other dings on your record, you may even wind up with a surprise suspension from the reported conviction, even after clearing up the NRVC problem.
For commercial drivers, the stakes are higher still. A CDL holder’s livelihood rides on his or her driving record, and out-of-state convictions follow a CDL the same way — often with harsher consequences under federal rules.
You should handle your ticket problem, but do it in a responsible manner, namely one which will avoid a conviction. You’d be better off hiring a lawyer who is local to the court where you got the ticket. Lawyers are licensed on a state-by-state basis, and few Texas lawyers will be licensed where you got the ticket. Further, a local lawyer is likely to know much more about the court, the judge, the prosecutor, and local customs than an out-of-town or out-of-state lawyer.
After the ticket has been handled responsibly, you are not out of the woods about your driver license. You still need to properly notify DPS, which usually means documentation that the ticket is no longer pending. It can easily take three weeks or more for DPS to process the documentation. In the meantime, your license would remain invalid, so it would be illegal to drive.
When you get an out-of-state ticket, get a local lawyer to help you. If you miss court, it’s still better late than never to get an attorney. If you are dealing with an NRVC ticket problem, don’t panic and just pay the ticket, because it will boomerang back to Texas as a conviction and hurt you for years.
Everything above works in both directions. If you live in another state and picked up a ticket in one of the more than 100 municipal and justice courts across South Texas, your home state will hear about it the same way — and the same advice applies: hire a lawyer local to the court. In South Texas, that’s exactly what we do, and in most ticket cases we can appear for you so you never have to make the drive back.
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