D.C. DMV Could Have Been Missing DUI Convictions For As Long As 15 Years

[mahatmakanejeeves]

JUN 29, 4:07 PM

D.C. DMV Could Have Been Missing DUI Convictions For As Long As 15 Years

Martin Austermuhle

The D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles says it is reviewing 15 years worth of DUI and other traffic-related convictions to check if they were properly placed on drivers’ records, which in some cases would have triggered a license suspension or revocation.

The admission of the broad review of convictions was included in a pair of letters from the DMV to members of the D.C. Council who have been asking questions in the wake of revelations over the past month that DUI convictions may not have been consistently recorded by the DMV, meaning that some drivers would not have had their licenses suspended or revoked as required by law.

The initial mishap was revealed in late May, after DMV officials said they were unaware that Nakita Walker, the woman now charged with murder for a fatal crash on Rock Creek Parkway in mid-March that killed three people, had three prior DUI convictions in D.C. and another two in Virginia, which should have resulted in her license being revoked. (Police say Walker was legally intoxicated at the time of the fatal crash.) The DMV officials eventually walked back that claim, instead telling the council that a “technical miscommunication” between D.C. Superior Court and the DMV’s driver records system had kept some of the DUI convictions from being property recorded.

Earlier this month DMV workers told DCist/WAMU that the problem is DESTINY, the agency’s two-decade-old system for managing driver records, which they said hasn’t been properly maintained and doesn’t always play well with other systems. While the DMV has said for years it would like to fully replace the system with a newer one, it has more recently told the council that it is modernizing it instead.

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