Keeping Border-Hoppers Off The Roads

The state of Missouri is using a national database to keep bad drivers from border-hopping–although fit sometimes causes some inconvenience.

Several states use the National Driver Register which compiles the driving records of 80-million people. whenever someone from another state applies for a Missouri license, the state runs that person’s name through the register. Sometimes the demand on the database is so large that it shuts down. Usually it’s a short time but it can be an hour or so before the information comes back.

Revenue Department spokesman David Griffith says Missouri has used the system for commercial drivers licenses for more than a decade and for regular licenses for about two years. It’s kept a lot of suspended drivers from surrounding states from just coming to Missouri to get a new license. He says the registry keeps those people off the roads in their original states and in our state, too.

Suspended drivers have to go back to their original states and clear their records before they’re allowed to get a license in Missouri. Griffith says the department does not have records of the number of drivers denied licenses because of information from other states in the National Driver Register.

Griffith says the database is a service to other drivers because it keeps dangerous ones from getting on Missouri’s roads.