Your driving record has a lot to do with your insurance costs, and it can even impact things like your ability to secure certain jobs. You might also see changes to your credit rating if your driving record has accidents and tickets on it that should not be there. Many people are not aware that their driving record is incorrect until they see increased costs for insurance or are turned down for a job that requires them to drive a vehicle while they are on the clock.
Many people aren’t aware that their driving record can be incorrect. Fortunately, there are some things that you can do to go about removing an accident from your driving record. Let’s talk about what your options are.
How to Get a Car Accident Off Your Driving Record
While it’s not a simple, overnight process to remove a car accident from your driving record, there are steps that you can take to apply for this correction to be made. Accidents will usually stay on your driving record for three years, so you will want to take action as soon as possible to get an accident off your record for good.
Car accidents can impact many things besides the cost of your insurance policies. You might find that your credit score is impacted, and you could struggle to get jobs that require you to use a vehicle. Points often stay on your record for years, and even once the actual accident is off your record, it will still show up in your overall driving history going forward if someone does a more complete search. Being held accountable for an accident that you didn’t even experience can make your life much harder for many reasons, which is why it’s so important to be sure that your driving record is accurate at all times.
Many people don’t even realize that they have inaccuracies in their driving record until they are told about them by their insurance agent or when they see their credit score change. You don’t have to accept this kind of record-keeping error. There are steps that you can take to handle issues with your driving record.
Here are the steps that you need to take to start the process of cleaning up your driving record:
1. Request a Copy of Your Driving Record
The first thing that you need to do is reach out to the Department of Public Safety to get access to a copy of your driving record.
2. Check for Errors
If you see errors or inconsistencies in your record, you need to highlight these issues as the things that need to be removed or corrected.
3. Complete a State-Approved Driving course
A state-approved driving course can prove that you are a good driver, and this class is reported to the Department of Public Safety to be added to your driving record as a favorable mark.
4. Make Sure That You Keep Your Record Clean After it is Corrected
Once you do get your driving record corrected, you will want to be sure that you keep your nose clean in the future. If you have a history of traffic accidents and tickets, you will be unable to apply to have any of the accidents on your record removed.
How do I Explain That the Accident on my Record Shouldn’t be There?
This is the main stumbling block for people who are reaching out to have their driving record corrected. You might need to know the local laws in your area inside and out, and you probably don’t understand legal jargon since you are not a lawyer.
Thankfully, there are legal professionals out there who will be more than happy to help you get your driving record corrected and cleaned up. You can hire a lawyer to apply to the state for driving records corrections on your behalf. Your lawyer will submit documentation and proof that you should not have the accident in question on your record, and they will pursue the situation to seek a favorable outcome for you.
Having a legal expert on your side almost always makes the process of cleaning up your driving record much easier. There is a lot of red tape associated with the records that local governments keep, so cutting through it can have a big impact on your overall success with your desire to correct your driving record.
Always be honest with your lawyer about what happened, and be sure to provide all the documentation that you can to prove that the accident on your record is incorrect. The better the information that your lawyer has to work with, the more likely it is that they will succeed in cleaning up your records.
Seeking Skilled Legal Representation Can Allow You To Correct Your Driving Record
In many cases, having a lawyer on your side is ideal if you are trying to clean up your driving record. It can be hard to go it alone when you need to work with the government to handle record-keeping issues. Being dismissed or pushed to the bottom of the list of things to do is a common experience for those trying to resolve these kinds of issues on their own.
Make sure that you are upfront and open with your lawyer about the reason that you think the incorrect information is in your driving record. The more information that your lawyer has about the situation, the easier it will be for them to help you clear your record. Make sure as well that you don’t have a habit of getting into trouble while you are driving a vehicle. It can be impossible to have incorrect information removed from your driving record if you are constantly in trouble with the law for other kinds of activities.
Having a clean driving record matters for many reasons. Don’t hesitate to correct issues with your driving record as soon as you become aware of them.
