Court Fails To Abstract DUI To DMV

Here’s a weird glitch that has been coming up lately that people should be aware of. It comes up in the context of a DUI conviction following an Ad Min Per Se suspension of the client’s California Driver’s License.

Assume a routine, garden variety DUI and a timely request for an APS hearing. Following the hearing DMV suspends the CDL for 30 days and follows that suspension with a 5 month restriction. Generally speaking this would call for an SR22, proof of DUI school enrollment, $125 reissue fee, and an Ignition Interlock Device (IID – Blow & Go). Assume further that the criminal matter is resolved in Court on the same day as the APS suspension goes into effect.

In theory, the Court should abstract the DUI conviction to DMV on the day of the plea, and the APS suspension and the DMV suspension as a result of the conviction would run concurrent. However, in Alameda County, and I’m told, in other counties using a similarly branded computer system, the abstract is sometimes not sent to DMV until months later. The Court therefore fails to timely update the DMV.

In the meantime, the Client, trying to do the right thing, gets her restricted license and an IID. Some months later, when the Court finally abstracts to DMV, DMV notifies Client that she must put another IID on her vehicle at her own expense. Although the DMV record shows that an IID was in fact installed for the requisite 5 month period, the DMV will not credit that IID time.

Unfair? Clearly. But both DMV and the Court point fingers at each other saying that the other’s computer, procedures, or view is wrong. The Client is caught in the middle without remedy.

I have suggested to clients that they not put the IID on their vehicle until ordered to do so by DMV and following the abstracting of the record by the Court to DMV.

I’d be very interested to know if others have run into this problem and if there is some clever fix.

I apologize for the rather wonky discussion, but it will be pretty straightforward for anyone who has dealt with it.