Legal Research

Effective December 1, 2009, the fee for driving records accessed electronically was lowered from $1.25 to $.0382 per record.

 

This fee decrease is the result of a huge legal mess that started with an agreement the Department of Revenue had signed with BearingPoint Inc. to act as the state-endorsed vendor to sell online motor vehicle records. The original plan was to increase the fee from $1.25 to $7.00 for name searches done on a batch or interactive mode.  However, apparently Missouri Revenue Director Omar Davis interpreted this to mean that the bulk access (database purchase by DPPA qualified users outside of driving record services) would also increase from a few cents per record to $7.00.



Several lawsuits were filed this past Summer and the Department of Revenue was forced to change its prices several times. The $.0382 fee is the latest set price in this unfortunate adventure.

The nationwide average price for electronic batch purchase of driving records is just under $7.00 per record. The nationwide norm of fees for bulk access of vehicle records is between $.02 and $.04 per record. The states charging the highest fees - Arizona and California - are selling in bulk at about $.10 per record.