Below are answers to frequently asked questions regarding driving records in Illinois. Driving records are different across all 50 states. Illinois driving records are maintained by the Illinois Secretary of State. They also are often referred to as driving record abstracts and motor vehicle records (MVR).
What information appears on an Illinois driving record?
Will Illinois find out about my out-of-state DUI?
Illinois is a member of the Driver’s License Compact, which is an agreement between states to exchange information regarding traffic violations and license suspensions or revocations of non-residents and forward that information to the state where they are licensed. Therefore, if the state where you are charged with DUI is part of the Driver’s License Compact, the appropriate authorities will report the information to the Illinois Secretary of State. Illinois will then treat the DUI as if it had been committed here.
While most states are part of the Driver’s License Compact, the few non-member states include Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. However, in practice, many of these states still report offenses to Illinois under their own laws and regulations even though they are not officially part of the Driver’s License Compact.
Having your driver’s license revoked or suspended can be a major inconvenience or even a life-altering problem. Losing your license can effect your work, family responsibilities, and personal life. We are often asked whether having your driver’s license suspended or revoked in one state will effect your ability to get a driver’s license in another state.
Most states, including Illinois, joined in an agreement called the Driver License Compact (DLC for short). The DLC is used to facilitate communicating information regarding people’s driving records between states. This means that if your driver’s license has been suspended in your home state, it will most likely prevent you from obtaining a license in the state to which you are moving. When you apply for a license, the local DMV (or its equivalent) will first check if your name appears in the National Driver Register’s (NDR) Problem Driver Pointer System (PDPS) which contains a list of names of people who have had their driver’s license revoked or suspended. If your name is listed in the NDR as “Not Eligible” you won’t be able to get a license in the given state.
If your driver’s license is revoked (not suspended) in your home state and you are a new Illinois resident, you can apply for a restricted driving permit one year from the date of the out-of-state revocation. In order to do so, you must have an administrative hearing before the Secretary of State and meet certain requirements. You are encouraged to seek competent legal representation to assist with this process.
Attorney Larry A. Davis, principal of The Davis Law Group, P.C., has been awarded the 2018 Richard H. Teas Legislative Support Award by the Illinois State Bar Association. The award acknowledges Mr. Davis’s work on behalf of the bar association’s legislative efforts in the Illinois General Assembly.
Mr. Davis has authored, co-authored and negotiated numerous laws primarily related to driving under the influence and driver’s license law. These laws include the Illinois summary suspension law, the offenses of driving while revoked and suspended, and the issuance of restricted driving permits following suspension or revocation. Additionally, Mr. Davis has spent countless hours in the analysis and negotiation of traffic and driver’s license law proposals. He has testified numerous times before the legislature on these various proposals.
This award was presented to Mr. Davis by Past-President of the ISBA and Retired Judge (Hon.) Russell W. Hartigan. It recognizes Mr. Davis’s continued leadership in the area of DUI, traffic and driver’s license law.
The Illinois Secretary of State is cancelling large numbers of driver’s licenses and state IDs due to fraud. The Secretary of State processes and compares the photos of anyone who applies for or renews a driver’s license or state ID in a central digital database. Therefore, if you obtained a license or ID under a false name, date of birth or social security number, there is a high probability that the Secretary of State’s facial recognition system will flag your application.
While you may initially leave the facility with a temporary permit (paper license), the official plastic license or ID may never arrive. Months later, in it’s place, you may receive a Notice of Cancellation which indicates that you “committed a fraudulent offense in the making of an application” directing you to contact the Illinois Secretary of State Fraudulent Review Unit. In turn, the matter is turned over to a Secretary of State Police investigator. At that time, an in-person interview may be required.
It isn’t unusual for the lawyers at The Davis Law Group, P.C. to work with individuals who committed the fraudulent offense a decade or two ago. These individuals may have previously renewed their driver’s license multiple times without any issues. The technology has changed over the years and allowed even very old instances of fraud to be uncovered.
Effective January 1, 2016, the Secretary of State began to enforce a new law requiring that revoked drivers with 2 or more DUI convictions who were granted a restricted driving permit (RDP) after an administrative hearing, drive on a breath alcohol ignition interlock device (BAIID) for a period of 5-years before applying for full reinstatement.
Unfortunately, the Secretary of State made the decision to apply this law retroactively. As a result, applicants whose DUIs occurred before the effective date of the new law and, in many cases years, decades earlier, are subject to the new law, only because they failed to apply before the change in the law went into effect.
Many of our clients have asked for the reasoning is behind the law. The law was proposed by the Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists (AAIM), which claimed that a study they had found demonstrated that until a person drives successfully for at least 5-years on a BAIID device, the chances that the person will return to abusive drinking is unacceptably high. However, further investigation demonstrates that the study relied on by AAIM says nothing of the sort.
There are a number of DUI and traffic-related proposals currently pending in the 2018 Illinois legislature. These are a few highlights of those bills, which deserve close attention:
Traffic Ticket Fine Waiver Program
Fines, fees and costs for minor traffic offenses could be excused for a defendant who is unable to pay. Upon application, the court may convert all of the obligation to community service or partially excuse payment without condition.
Under the Illinois summary suspension law, a driver who is arrested for DUI and has not had a prior DUI disposition within 5-years is considered a ‘first offender’. This is significant because if the driver is considered a first offender, he or she faces a shorter driver’s license suspension based on whether chemical testing is failed or refused (6-months vs. 12-months). Furthermore, a first offender is automatically eligible for driving privileges during the period of the suspension through use of an MDDP.
The Secretary of State’s office is behind a new proposal now pending in the Illinois legislature that will drastically change the definition of a first offender under the Illinois DUI summary suspension law.
The new legislation would triple what has been called the 5-year look-back to a period of 15-years. This means that if the prior DUI disposition occurred within 15-years, the driver would be considered a second (or subsequent) offender and would be subject to a substantially longer period of driver’s license suspension based on whether chemical testing is failed or refused (6-months vs. 1-year for failed testing and 1-year vs. 3-years for refused testing) and would be barred from receiving automatic driving privileges during the period of suspension.
The DUI defense attorneys at The Davis Law Group, P.C., often find that many of our clients are both concerned and confused when confronted with the complex landscape of Illinois DUI law, which includes the statutory summary suspension law. As attorneys who have represented thousands of individuals charged with DUI and who are involved in the writing of DUI laws, we strive to make this complex area of the law more understandable.
In the vast majority of cases, a DUI can be broken down into two parts: the Statutory Summary Suspension of one’s driving privileges, which is a civil proceeding, and the criminal charge for Driving Under the Influence. In this post we address the first part of DUI: the Illinois Summary Suspension law.
The summary suspension law differs for those who are considered a “first-offender” and those who are not considered to be a “first offender.” Someone is considered to be a “first-offender” when he or she has not had a disposition for DUI, or a statutory summary suspension, in the five years preceding his or her current arrest. In other words, so long as one has not had a statutory summary suspension, pled guilty or been found guilty of a DUI in the five years preceding their current arrest, he or she is considered a “first-offender” for purposes of the statutory summary suspension—regardless of the number of DUIs and/or statutory summary suspensions they have had in their lifetime. If a “first-offender” submits to, and fails, chemical testing—i.e. testing of breath, blood, or urine—they face a 6-month driver’s license suspension. If a “first-offender” refuses testing, he or she faces a 12-month license suspension.
A relatively new Illinois law requires that before a driver with more than one DUI conviction can be considered for full reinstatement, he or she is first required to drive on Restricted Driving Permit (RDP) with a Breath Alcohol Ignition Interlock Device (BAIID) for a five-year period. Unfortunately, this requirement applies even if the person has already served the minimum period of driver’s license revocation and was eligible to be considered for full reinstatement.
The Illinois Secretary of State has chosen to apply this requirement to any person who applies for driving privileges after the effective date of the new law, January 1, 2016. Therefore, even if your DUIs occurred prior to this date, whether a month earlier or 30 years earlier, the new law applies to you.
A RDP usually can only be issued for work, school, medical reasons or for child/elder care. Therefore, a problem arises if the person is eligible for reinstatement, but is required to first drive on the RDP for five-years and has no need for any of these types of permits. A good example is the unemployed or retired person.
Published by The Davis Law Group, P.C.