Who this affects
Arrest records and commercial driving
Federal rule forbids every state from letting a CDL holder use deferred adjudication or diversion to keep a conviction off the record — in any vehicle, on or off duty — and defines conviction to include simply paying the fine.
The escape hatch is closed by regulation
49 CFR § 384.226 states that a state must not mask, defer imposition of judgment, or allow an individual to enter a diversion programme that would prevent a CLP or CDL holder's conviction for any violation, in any type of motor vehicle, of a state or local traffic control law from appearing on the CDLIS driver record — whether the offence occurred in the licensing state or another.
And § 383.5 defines conviction broadly enough to catch the ordinary citizen's reflex: an unvacated forfeiture of bail or collateral, a plea accepted by the court, or the payment of a fine or court cost, regardless of whether the penalty is rebated, suspended or probated. Mailing in the ticket is the act that creates the federal record.
The disqualifying offences in § 383.51 are conviction-keyed, but note that refusing an alcohol test carries the same sanction as a DUI conviction, and controlled-substance felony and human-trafficking felony offences carry lifetime bars.
Where a pre-conviction event bites anyway
The Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse operates on employer knowledge, not court outcomes. Under § 382.107, actual knowledge includes a traffic citation for driving a commercial vehicle while under the influence — a citation, not a conviction — and § 382.705 makes that a mandatory employer report.
Retention is a floor, not a cap: under § 382.719 the record stays queryable until the return-to-duty process is complete and five years have passed since the violation determination, whichever is later. An unfinished process keeps it visible indefinitely.
Since 18 November 2024, Clearinghouse-II requires state licensing agencies to remove commercial driving privileges from the licence of a driver subject to the prohibition — so a refusal with no arrest, charge or court appearance now produces a state-issued downgrade.
You must notify your employer and your licensing state within 30 days of a conviction under § 383.31. Note that § 391.27, the old annual list of violations, is now reserved — the 2022 rule eliminated it, so advice telling you to file one is out of date.
What is actually removable
None of the federal records. CDLIS, the Clearinghouse and the PSP report are government systems, and the PSP report carries roadside inspection violations as recorded by the officer — five years of crash data and three years of inspection data — with no conviction requirement and no removal service able to touch it.
What is removable is the commercial layer: the mugshot aggregators and people-search sites that surface when a dispatcher, an owner-operator client, or a recruiter searches your name alongside the regulated checks they are already running. Keep the two separate, and be sceptical of anyone who blurs them.
What a disqualification actually costs, and what a carrier sees
The disqualification periods are worth knowing before you weigh any plea. Under 49 CFR §391.15(c), an offence committed while operating a commercial vehicle carries one year for a first offence — six months where the conviction is solely for transporting or possessing a controlled substance — and three years for a subsequent offence within three years. A driver is separately disqualified for the whole period a licence is revoked, suspended, withdrawn or denied.
On the hiring side, the inquiry is narrower than drivers fear. Within 30 days of hire a carrier must obtain your motor vehicle record from every licensing authority where you held a licence in the preceding three years, plus a safety-performance history from DOT-regulated employers over the same period. That is a driving record, not a criminal one.
For scale: since the drug and alcohol clearinghouse opened in January 2020 it has recorded over 308,000 violations, with more than 180,000 licence holders in prohibited status. Marijuana metabolite accounts for roughly 171,000 positive tests, about 59 per cent of substance violations — which is worth knowing in a state where the underlying conduct is legal.
Common questions
Can I keep a ticket off my record with deferred adjudication?
No. 49 CFR § 384.226 bars states from letting a CDL holder do that, in any vehicle, and paying the fine is itself a conviction under § 383.5.
Can you remove a Clearinghouse entry?
No. It is a federal database with its own retention rule — at minimum five years from the violation determination, longer if the return-to-duty process is incomplete.
What about the PSP report?
Also federal, and it reports inspection violations rather than convictions. Removal work does not reach it.
Try the free route first
Google removes your home address, phone number, email and — since February 2026 — government ID numbers at no cost. More than 10 million people have used it. It does not cover arrest records, and it will not touch a government or newspaper page, but it is free and it is worth running first.
Open Google’s Results about you tool
Sources
- 49 CFR § 384.226
- 49 CFR § 383.5 — definitions
- 49 CFR § 383.51 — disqualifications
- 49 CFR § 382.107 — actual knowledge
- 49 CFR part 382 subpart G — Clearinghouse
- FMCSA — Clearinghouse-II CDL downgrades
- 49 CFR § 391.27 — reserved
- FMCSA — Pre-Employment Screening Program
- 49 CFR 391.15 — disqualification periods
- 49 CFR 391.23 — driving record and safety history inquiries
- FMCSA Clearinghouse — monthly summary report
Every claim on this page traces to the sources above, checked on 2026-08-25. Rules in this area change — several of the ones on this page changed in the last three years. If you find something here that is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.
