The Best Decision for You After Getting a Ticket
Order your Driving Record & Contact an Attorney
Request records in real-time directly from The Florida DMV - aka DHSMV. These are official records and are on the State's letter head. View a sample record with personal information included.
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Ticket & Record Retention Information
Consider the state of Florida had more than 20 million drivers at any given time, with drivers moving in and out of the state. It would not make sense to keep every single driver's ticket(s) on file forever, or keep every driver's record on file forever. This is the reason for retention policies which apply to both tickets and driving records.
Retention Periods for Tickets
Tickets have retention periods based on severity. Non-alcohol related tickets normally have a 3-5 year retention and are later removed or purged from driving records.
Insurance companies determine rates based on the past 3 years, and insurability based on the past 5 years. Therefore, most tickets are removed after 5 years.
Exceptions to tickets being removed in 5 years are DUI tickets, which have a 75-year retention.
Electing driver improvement school will add a 75-year retention to your ticket. This keeps track of how many times you choose driver improvement school and for which tickets.
CDL drivers may have longer retention periods on their tickets.
Driving Record Retention
Like tickets, driving records also have retention periods. If your driving record is clean and does not have any tickets or sanctions, and no monies are owed for any outstanding items, your entire driving record may be purged or deleted from the State system once the retention period is met.
The official retention period is 18 months after expiration for citizens and other license holders with issued for 10 years. The retention period for 'temporary' licenses issued from 1 year to 18 months is 6 months after expiration. Temporary license holders are normally issued to people here on visa or newly arrived and processing immigration paperwork.
Terminology for Driving Records
This website will use the term 'driving record' throughout most of the articles and text. This term is interchangeable with 'driver abstract', 'driver history', or even 'MVR'. The insurance industry likes to use the term MVR, which is an acronym for motor vehicle records - and technically should refer to a VIN report (for a vehicle).
If you hear any of these terms used, such as MVR, they all mean the same thing: a driving record. We are proud to be connected to the State of Florida DMV (known as DHSMV which is short for Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles) to provide driving records in real-time.
Be careful, there are companies that say they provide driver abstracts and MVRs, but they are creating their own reports from 'scraping' public records, branding the recods with their logos, and are not obtaining an official record directly from the State of Florida DHSMV in real-time.
You can see our records on are State letter head and we do not brand them in any way. You get exactly what is on file with the State DMV at that minute! View a sample MVR or driver abstract with personal information included on state letterhead.
Unfortunately, you received a traffic ticket in Florida or another state. Let's review the 3 most common options for your next steps. Each option has a short-term and long-term consequences.
We have seen driving records by the 1,000s and have spoken to countless clients about their situations, and their tickets are stuck on their records forever and it's too late.
We decided to put together this information to help you make your decision. While the information on this page is true and correct, this is not considered 'legal advice'.
Here is the short version of your options after you get a traffic ticket!
| ACTION | RESULTS |
|---|---|
| Pay the Ticket |
|
| Driver Improvement School |
|
| Hire an Attorney |
|
Below we will describe the options and how they affect your Florida driving record in both the short and long term.
Pay the Ticket
Paying the ticket might be the first option most people consider, especially for out of state residents, to resolve the issue quickly and easily. It's an easy option for the short term, but if you elect this option you are guaranteed to get points on your driving record!
Points on your license are the last thing you want. Points raise your insurance rates significantly and if you collect too many points in a short amount of time, you are at risk of getting your driver license suspended. See the table below.
| Points | Suspension |
|---|---|
| 12 points within 12 months | 30-day suspension |
| 18 points within 18 months | Three-month suspension |
| 24 points within 36 months | One-year suspension |
Having points on your license also affects your employability for any position which requires you to drive, especially as a CDL driver. Employers will have to pay a higher insurance premium for you to drive a company vehicle, so you will probably not be a first pick for the job.
Driver Improvement School
This is the safer option as it guarantees no points on your record and your insurance rates will not go up, that is, if you qualify to make this election. You can only choose driver improvement school if you have not made this choice in the past year or have not chosen this 5 times in your life. Even if your driving record is not the best, it makes sense to select an attorney to fight the ticket on your behalf instead. We recommend to buy your driving record history and consult with an attorney!
A little known fact about choosing driving school is that this option automatically adds a 75-year retention to the ticket, so it will cause that ticket to be on your driving record forever! Read more about retention for tickets and records on this same page.
With this added retention to the ticket, it means the ticket will appear on an 11-year complete record until you are about 90-100 years old, if you started driving between the age of 15 and 20.
This might be a good option if your ticket is minor, like rolling through a stop sign. If you were speeding and were cited for doing 90 mph in a 70 mph zone, consider that any future employer requesting a complete record will see this ticket for your entire life. Please note that we indicated these tickets will show on a complete driving record - which is the 11-year record. These tickets will not show on a 3-year or 7-year records, even it they occured in the past 3 or 7 years. Tickets where adjudication was withheld will only show on 11-year records, but will show on this record type for life - well beyond the 11-years - because these are complete records.
Make sure that once you complete the driving school course (which is mostly done online these days), that the Clerk of Courts for the county you got the ticket in receives your completion of the course. Florida law requires traffic schools to electronically file your traffic school completion certificate with the Clerk of Courts office within 5 days of your course completion. It wouldn't hurt to follow up on this to ensure it has been done. Otherwise, your license could be suspended because it appears you didn't complete the course in the allowable time. If you can get proof if completion from the school, it's a good thing to keep on file in your records in case you need to prove it to the Clerk in case of an issue with your license. (Yes, we have seen this happen!)
Hire an Attorney
This is probably the best option for most people. The cost is somewhat comparable to paying the ticket and going to driving school, plus a few extra bucks. The upside is the attorney will handle the appearance for you in court and eventually the ticket will be removed from your records, in about 5 years. You can hire an attorney, pay the fees, and you are done for the most part. You may have to pay some additional court costs later, but that is the cost to avoid the time spent online for driving school and having the ticket removed from your record in about 5 years - of course this is for regular low level offense tickets, not DUI or possession of drug charges. For the most part, the attorney fees are comparable to the cost of the online driving school.
The downside is there is always a chance you still get points, but it's actually a rare event. Normally an attorney will ask the judge to send you to traffic school to avoid points, even if you went in the past year or 5 times in your life. To our understanding, the judge can send you anyways, but please consult this with your attorney if your record is looking a bit rough.
The short term benefit is that you don't have to do much (besides pay an attorney) and most times you won't get any points - assuming your driving history is somewhat normal - meaning you are not an HTO or habitual traffic offender.
The long term benefit for this option is that in about 5 years, most tickets are removed from your driving record. Yes, in 5+ years there will not be any trace of this ticket for most infraction types.
Before contacting an attorney, it's best to buy your driving record history and provide it to the attorney when you consult with them, to get the best advise possible.
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