DMV Driving Records
Your MVR includes key details that insurance carriers and employers use to evaluate risk and compliance.
What is a Driving Record?
A driving record—sometimes called a motor vehicle record (MVR) or driver abstract—is an official state document that provides a comprehensive overview of your history behind the wheel. State agencies like the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) or Department of Transportation (DOT) maintain these records for all licensed drivers.
What Information Appears on Your Driving Record?
Your MVR includes key details that insurance carriers and employers use to evaluate risk and compliance.
Identifying details (full name, residential address, birth date)
License credentials (license number, type/class, current status, renewal date)
Moving violations and traffic tickets
Crash history and at-fault determinations
Violation point totals (where applicable by state)
Impaired driving offenses (DUI/DWI)
Endorsements, restrictions, or special licensing conditions
Record Lengths Vary by State
Depending on where you’re licensed and what you need the record for, driving histories are available for different periods—commonly 3, 5, or 7 years, with some states offering full lifetime records upon request.
State DMV Resouces
Why MVRs Decide Your Insurance Rates
Underwriters price a trucking policy driver-by-driver, and the MVR is the document they price from. A single serious violation — speeding 15+ over, following too close, improper lane change — can add double-digit percentages to a driver’s share of the premium, and most trucking insurers will simply decline to schedule a driver with a recent DUI, reckless, or too many moving violations. Hiring a driver without pulling the MVR first means finding out at renewal that your new hire made the whole fleet more expensive — or unschedulable.
The Federal Requirement Most Fleets Miss
MVR review isn’t just good practice — it’s law. FMCSA regulation 49 CFR §391.23 requires an MVR from every state a driver held a license in the past three years at hiring, and §391.25 requires you to pull and review each driver’s MVR at least once every 12 months, with the review documented in the driver qualification file. In a post-accident audit or nuclear-verdict lawsuit, a missing annual MVR review is exactly the kind of negligent-entrustment evidence plaintiff attorneys look for.
MVR vs. PSP: Pull Both
The MVR shows licensed-driver history — violations, suspensions, convictions — from the state. The PSP (Pre-Employment Screening Program) report from FMCSA shows five years of crash data and three years of roadside inspection violations that never became tickets. A driver can have a clean MVR and an ugly PSP. For hiring, pull both; for the annual review, the MVR is the required document.
Build a Screening Program That Pays for Itself
- Pull MVRs before the road test, not after the hire.
- Set written standards (e.g., no more than 2 moving violations in 3 years, no majors in 5) so decisions are consistent and defensible.
- Calendar the annual §391.25 review for every driver — or enroll in your state’s employer notification service where available.
- Share your screening standards with us at renewal: documented driver vetting is a negotiating chip that helps us place your fleet with better markets.