How we compile state traffic-school rules
We compile one honest rule record per U.S. jurisdiction from public-record state law and official .gov pages — and we are explicit about confidence and about what is, and isn't, legal advice. This page explains how, and what we deliberately do not do.
Who’s behind this site
Traffic School by State is an independent publisher operated by VentureCorp, Inc. We are not a court, a DMV, a law firm, or a course provider, and we do not accept payment to change a rule or a state's record. The site answers one question from public sources: how does each state treat a traffic-school or defensive-driving course against a citation?
Where our data comes from
| Data | Source | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Mechanism, frequency & points effect | State DMV / court official .gov pages (cited per state via source_url) | Every per-state page and the comparison |
| Governing statute | State traffic codes / statutes, pinned where verified | The requirements and rule-record pages |
YMYL / legal discipline. This is regulatory information, not legal advice. Every per-state record carries the state's primary .gov source, a confidence flag, and an instruction to confirm with the court or DMV. Rows at medium confidence are labelled to verify before relying; we never present a low-confidence rule as certain, and we never fabricate a statute, frequency or mechanism the source doesn't support. There is no nationwide cost or course-hours figure in the data, so we publish none.
How we calculate
Each jurisdiction is recorded from its state DMV/court .gov page: the legal mechanism (dismissal, point reduction, masking, pre-conviction election, court discretion, or no program), the frequency limit, the points effect, and the governing statute where we can pin it. Each row gets a confidence flag — high where confirmed against the statute, medium where it needs a state-page confirmation. We re-verify on a semiannual cadence aligned to legislative sessions (traffic codes commonly change on July 1 / January 1).
What we deliberately leave out. We give no legal advice and make no determination about your specific citation — that's for the court or a licensed attorney. We publish no nationwide cost or course-hours figure (it isn't a single state fact), and we never imply that completing a course guarantees dismissal: the outcome is the state's rule, applied to your case.
Independence & how we make money
Some links on this site may be affiliate links to state-approved course providers; if you act on one we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. We only ever surface a provider actually approved in the relevant state, partners never influence the rules we publish, and no placement is for sale.
Keeping it current
Traffic codes change with the legislative session, so we re-pull the state .gov pages and re-verify each rule and its confidence flag on a semiannual cadence. Each page carries its verification date; current verification: June 2026. For your case, confirm the current rule with the court handling your citation or your DMV.
Corrections
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