How to Remove Violations from Your Driving Record in Georgia

You have a few real ways to remove or neutralize a violation on your Georgia driving record: enter a nolo contendere plea so no points attach, complete a certified defensive driving course to subtract up to seven points, contest the citation in court for a dismissal or reduction, or correct a clerical error through the court that reported it. Which option fits depends on whether the conviction is already posted, how recent it is, and what the violation was. Learning how to remove violations from your driving record in Georgia also means learning what cannot be removed, because a legitimate, correctly reported conviction generally stays on the Department of Driver Services (DDS) record even after you’ve handled the points.

Pull Your Driving Record Before You Do Anything

Start by seeing what DDS actually has on you. The agency offers a Motor Vehicle Report (MVR) online through the DDS portal, in person at any Customer Service Center, by mail, or through the DDS 2 GO mobile app. The app shows two years of history for free, which usually covers the window that matters for a points suspension.¹

Paid reports run $6 for three years or $8 for either seven years or lifetime. If an insurer or employer triggered your concern, pay for the seven-year version, because insurers often look further back than the two-year suspension window.¹

Once you can see each violation, its date, and its point value, you can match the right removal strategy to the right entry.

What You’re Working Against

DDS suspends your license when you accumulate 15 or more points in any 24-month period, measured from the arrest dates of convictions.²

Common point values:

Speeding 15–18 mph over the limit: 2 points
Speeding 19–23 mph over: 3 points
Speeding 24–33 mph over: 4 points
Speeding 34+ mph over: 6 points
Reckless driving: 4 points
Disobeying a traffic control device or officer: 3 points

They stack quickly. A reckless driving conviction plus one 24-mph-over speeding ticket is 8 points from two incidents.²

Enter a Nolo Contendere Plea to Keep Points Off

A nolo contendere (no contest) plea lets you accept the fine without points attaching to the conviction. DDS will honor one nolo plea for a moving violation every five years and assign zero points for it.³

You still pay the fine, and the conviction still shows up on the record. The point column stays empty. Because you only get one every five years, save it for a high-point ticket, not a 2-point minor speeding offense.

To use it, tell the court at or before your arraignment. Some Georgia courts accept a nolo plea by mail or online for minor offenses; others require you to appear in person. The citation lists the court handling your case.

Complete a Defensive Driving Course to Subtract Points

Finishing a state-certified defensive driving course lets you reduce your point total by up to seven, once every five years.⁴

The course runs six hours and must be taken through a DDS-certified driving school. DDS maintains the list of approved providers, which includes the National Safety Council, AAA, and several Georgia-specific organizations. Verify a school’s certification on the DDS site before paying; a class from an uncertified school won’t count.⁵

After finishing, you submit your certificate to DDS. The seven-point reduction applies, but your total cannot drop below zero.⁴

The nolo plea and the course run on independent five-year clocks, so you can use a nolo plea to block points on a new ticket while using the course to erase points from older convictions.

Contest the Citation

Fighting a ticket is the only path that keeps a conviction off your record entirely. A dismissal or not-guilty verdict means no conviction, no points, and nothing for an insurer to see.

Enter a not-guilty plea by the deadline on the citation. The court will set a trial date. At trial, the state has to prove the violation, and the citing officer usually has to appear. Many courts dismiss when the officer does not show.

Most cases that go to trial also involve pretrial negotiation. Prosecutors sometimes reduce charges to non-moving violations that carry no points, especially for first-time offenders or borderline speeding stops. A local traffic attorney often knows which prosecutors negotiate and which judges hear which arguments.

Negotiation can matter beyond the points. Getting an 85 mph charge reduced to 84 mph, for example, eliminates Georgia’s $200 Super Speeder state fee, which attaches to any conviction for driving 85 mph or faster on any road, or 75 mph or faster on a two-lane road.⁶

Correct Errors on Your Record

Not every bad entry is a legitimate conviction. A ticket may be posted to the wrong driver, a dismissed charge may still show as a conviction, or a date may be wrong. DDS maintains Georgia driving records and corrects them when documentation proves the mistake.⁷

Most errors start at the court level, because court clerks submit conviction data to DDS electronically. Contact the court that handled the original citation first. If it confirms the error, it can retransmit corrected information to DDS. If the court says it reported the matter correctly but you believe the entry was attached to the wrong person or license number, go to DDS directly with documentation such as a court disposition letter or case number showing the correct outcome.

When administrative channels fail, you can file a petition in the superior court of your county asking for a court-ordered correction. This route tends to make sense only when the error has already caused real harm, such as a wrongful suspension, and neither DDS nor the originating court will fix it. A superior court can order DDS to amend the record if it finds in your favor.

Commercial Driver’s License Holders: These Tools Mostly Don’t Work

If you hold a CDL, federal regulations bar states from masking, deferring judgment, or allowing any diversion program that would keep a traffic conviction off your CDL record. The rule covers every traffic violation in any vehicle, not just violations in a commercial truck.⁸

The exceptions are parking tickets, vehicle weight violations, and vehicle defect violations. Everything else, including a speeding ticket in your personal car on a Saturday, must appear on your Commercial Driver’s License Information System (CDLIS) record.⁸

In practice, the Georgia nolo contendere plea and the defensive driving point reduction will not keep a conviction off a CDL record. CDL holders should focus on contesting citations outright or negotiating full dismissals. Employers who hire commercial drivers are required to check motor vehicle records before hiring and on a recurring basis.

Criminal Record Restriction Will Not Clean Your Driving Record

Georgia’s record restriction process under O.C.G.A. 35-3-37 applies to criminal history records maintained by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, not the driving record maintained by DDS. If you were arrested for reckless driving or DUI and the charges were dropped or you were acquitted, you may be able to restrict the criminal arrest record from background checks.⁹

Restricting a criminal record does not remove the matching violation from your DDS driving history. These are separate databases held by separate agencies. The driving record side still has to be addressed through the methods above, usually by contesting the citation or fixing an error at the court level.¹⁰

Georgia’s First Offender Act can prevent a formal criminal conviction for some defendants who complete probation, but the Act excludes DUI charges and can only be used once. For traffic-related criminal offenses other than DUI, such as misdemeanor reckless driving, a judge has discretion to grant first offender treatment. Even then, it does not automatically clean the DDS driving record.¹¹

1
Georgia Department of Driver Services. MVR – Driving History
2
Justia. Georgia Code 40-5-57 – Suspension or Revocation of License of Habitually Negligent or Dangerous Driver; Point System
3
Georgia Department of Driver Services. Points and Points Reduction
4
Justia. Georgia Code 40-5-86 – Reduction of Point Count Upon Completion of Course
5
Georgia Department of Driver Services. Driver Improvement Program
6
Justia. Georgia Code 40-6-189 – Classification as Super Speeder
7
Georgia Department of Driver Services. Georgia Department of Driver Services
8
eCFR. 49 CFR 384.226 – Prohibition on Masking Convictions
9
Justia. Georgia Code 35-3-37 – Criminal History Record Information; Review; Corrections; Restriction of Access for Certain Dispositions
10
Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Georgia Criminal History Record Restrictions
11
Justia. Georgia Code 42-8-60 – Probation Prior to Adjudication of Guilt