The Truth About Online Driving Records

We live in a society where most people drive on a regular, day-to-day basis. In fact, the United States currently has over 286 million cars registered nationwide. That’s a lot of cars, especially considering that there are only 329 million people in the country. That means that there is a car registered to roughly 87% of people in the United States, and most of those cars are driven around on at least a semi-regular basis. If you’re looking for driving records online so you can know more about some of the people driving these vehicles, there is definitely some information that you will find useful first.

Driving Records are Universal

Every single state in the U.S. has driving records online. These records are kept by the DMV, and they contain a lot of information. The year, make, and model of the car you have registered, where it’s registered, the vehicle identification number, commonly referred to as the VIN, your license plate number, registration status, drivers license details such as the license number, state of issuance, and expiration date, how many vehicle crashes you’ve been involved in, the list goes on. Your driving record is full of all sorts of information about you, your car, and whatever driving habits can be extrapolated from interactions with police and accidents you’ve been involved in. 

The DMV handles all of this and takes reports from your insurance company as well as from law enforcement officers that might happen to pull you over at any given time. The entity that’s most likely to access this information is a car insurance company that you’re looking to sign up with. They can look at this record, as well as some self-reported information, and can decide what rate would be the fairest for you. They also look at your sex and age range to determine this information. 

Driving records are one of the things that every state agrees is important, which is rare. While each state handles everything from licensing to drinking and driving differently, the record still exists no matter where you may happen to live. This is important for making sure that everyone that is driving is doing so in a way that doesn’t endanger other people on the road while also ensuring that the state gets their registration income. Most of the income acquired from registration is actually used to repair infrastructures like roads and bridges. 

The DMV Keeps a Close Eye on Who Can Access Driving Records

If you’ve tried to get driving records from the DMV as a third party, you’ve probably already noticed that it’s actually quite difficult. That’s by design, and the DMV keeps driving records under lock and key for anyone that isn’t the person that the records belong to. If the records belong to you, the process is pretty simple. Most states allow you to request the information right on their website, and you just have to pay a small fee, usually around $5, and you’ll instantly have digital access. It’s actually a pretty convenient process if you’re only looking to get the information for yourself, and it’s very direct. 

On the other hand, most state DMVs will only do correspondence with third parties over snail mail. If a third party wants access to someone’s driving records through the DMV, they must download and fill out a form that must include the reason why they’re looking into this person’s driving record. They must then put the form into an envelope and mail it to the DMV with a higher processing fee, usually about $10. Once you send in your request, they’ll review your forms and determine where or not you’d be authorized to access this information. They do require an official reason for a third party to access this information, so usually, it’s organizations that are granted access rather than people. 

The DMV has things set up this way to help with the privacy of your everyday citizens. The state doesn’t think it should be that easy for just anyone to walk up to the DMV and ask for this information. This information is still available through other avenues if you know how to look for it, but the DMV does its part to ensure that everyone is guaranteed some level of privacy, even if they do realize that all of the information can still be found in other ways. It’s better to only allow the innovative to access this information than to just leave it sitting on the table for anyone to access. 

Driving Records are Public Information

It may or may not surprise you to hear that driving records are considered public information. That means that anyone can actually access them if they know the right paths and procedures to follow. There are many other things that may surprise you to find out are public records such as criminal records, court records, arrest records, and even your address. Among the list of things that are public records are also things that may catch you less off-guard such as property records and business records for publicly traded companies. All of the information that is considered public record is either to protect citizens or provide transparency for the government. 

The government takes records for everything it does so that things can be reviewed later on if need be. Everything from military operations to school bake sales is recorded in their proper records. It makes things a lot easier to have this information written down on a piece of paper or in a computer document rather than to just have to talk to people to see what they remember. In fact, companies even take lots of records. Some private citizens even take records, but that’s usually called something like journaling or budgeting, depending on what exactly we’re talking about.

The reason why the DMV is able to restrict who is able to access driving records even though they’re considered public information is simple. Just because something is a public record doesn’t mean that it needs to be easily accessible. In fact, the government is sued pretty often to unseal records, and that process is a lot more complicated than getting something like driving records. Fortunately, as we alluded to, there is a way to get around the DMV to get the driving records that you’re looking for. The trick is knowing how to do it, but it’s really a simple process.

How to Find Driving Records on the Internet

Because driving records are considered public information, there’s a way to find it. The internet has made this task even simpler, and you can actually get the information you’re looking for in just a few short minutes if you’re at least tech-savvy enough to know how to use a search engine and navigate a website. You can actually find a whole lot more than just driving records if you know the right method to use. It’s not uncommon to find services that can provide a full blown background check on someone by only accessing public records.

The easiest way to do this is to find a good personal background check service. These services are powerful tools for people that are looking for this sort of information, especially driving records. Now, you may not be able to find a record that is verbatim what the DMV provides this way, but you can get pretty close, depending on the service you use. At the very least, you can be sure that you’ll find enough information about them to determine if they’re safe enough to drive yourself or your loved ones around. 

These services work by scouring thousands of public record databases all over the country and reporting back with only the most relevant information. All you need to do is provide the first name, last name, and state of the person in question, and you’ll instantly get the search results. Oftentimes, you’ll also get things like criminal records, which serves to sweeten the pot of this method. Many people that undergo these kinds of searches are able to find exactly the information they’re looking for so quickly that it doesn’t impact their day in the slightest.

Driving Records are Interesting, to Say the Least.

Driving records, really the record-keeping of our government in general, is some pretty interesting stuff. Everyone that you know, including yourself, has some records kept by the government. Whether that’s just a birth certificate or a lot more than just that, the government tends to keep these records for an incredibly long time. Most of those records are only available to people within the government, but some of them can definitely be accessed by anyone with an internet connection that knows where to look. 

***SpyFly provides consumers affordable, immediate access to public record information. Federal laws prohibit businesses from using SpyFly’s service to make decisions about employment, insurance, consumer credit, tenant screening, or for any other purpose subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 USC 1681 et seq.**