Imagine you’re on a road trip, singing along to the radio with the windows down as you cruise across the country. Then you notice a patrol car behind you. After quickly glancing at the speedometer, you realize you’re within the limit. But what if you hadn’t been and picked up a speeding ticket issued by a state where you don’t live?

For about the last half-century, drivers in this scenario generally have been able to proceed with their trip and deal with the ramifications of the citation later, so long as the infraction didn’t warrant immediate intervention.

That wasn’t always the case, though. Up until the 1970s, motorists who received a moving violation while traveling out of state often were required to pay fines immediately or pause their travel plans so they could appear in a nearby court. In other cases, authorities would seize the driver’s license as collateral or even take the motorist into custody. Without such measures, jurisdictions had no means to ensure that the motorists would be held accountable for the terms of their citations.

That began to change in 1965 when Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey became the first states to enforce penalties imposed by peer jurisdictions related to minor traffic violations, including suspensions of driving privileges. That effort soon led to the creation of the Non-Resident Violator Compact (NRVC) of 1977. (The NRVC applies only to moving violations, not parking or standing violations.) Forty-four states and the District of Columbia eventually signed on to the NRVC, and the compact has underpinned decades of smooth cooperation between states.

The NRVC shares similarities with another interstate compact, the Driver License Compact (DLC), though the two serve distinct purposes. The DLC focuses on the tenets of driver’s license issuance, while the NRVC specifically targets out-of-state traffic citations, ensuring that non-resident violators comply with citation terms or face potential license suspension in their home state.

Up until the 1970s, motorists who received a moving violation while traveling out of state often were required to pay fines immediately or pause their travel plans so they could appear in a nearby court.

“The Non-Resident Violator Compact has been functioning in the background for so long that it’s almost been forgotten,” says Chris Caras, director of the Driver License Division within the State of Utah’s Department of Public Safety, and chair of the NRVC Executive Board. (AAMVA acts as secretariat to the NRVC board.)

That is, until recently. Two major speed bumps are on NRVC’s horizon: the need for a technological update and to square away states’ varying policies that have changed over time.

“It was kind of a sleeping compact until the last three to four years. Now states are looking at it and asking, ‘Where does this fit in the conversation, and how do we deal with it in today’s world?’” says Caras.

Refreshing the NRVC

Why the sudden re-examination of a compact that’s gone decades without much scrutiny? In part, that’s because the NRVC was developed in an era when fax machines represented cutting-edge tech and sending records by mail made sense as the default transmission mode. Fifty years later, that’s worth an update. For example, AAMVA’s State-to-State Verification Service equips jurisdictions to instantly share non-commercial records electronically.

More than outdated technology or the logistical hurdles of pushing through an amendment, the biggest threat to the NRVC—and the biggest challenge facing its board—is a growing policy divide that could undermine the jurisdictional cooperation at the heart of the compact.

“The manual processes of the past are where we saw some of the real points of failure that can have tragic consequences,” Caras says, such as if an unsafe driver is allowed on the road. “The technology is there. We just need to be utilizing it.”

Yet making the switch is more difficult than, well, flipping a switch. The NRVC outlines specific protocols for transmitting information from state to state. Because of that granular guidance, the compact itself must be amended to accommodate the internet age.

Amending the compact isn’t easy, either. Some states—including Utah, where Caras lives—enshrined the text of the NRVC directly into state law. Modifying it will require passing new legislation through the statehouse. Before doing so, the NRVC board wants to ensure that the amended text is durable enough to hold up as long as the existing compact.

And that’s the real rub. More than outdated technology or the logistical hurdles of pushing through an amendment, the biggest threat to the NRVC—and the biggest challenge facing its board—is a growing policy divide that could undermine the jurisdictional cooperation at the heart of the compact.

Getting the States to Agree

According to the NRVC compact, if a visiting motorist incurs a citation in one state that eventually leads to a “failure to pay” (FTP) or “failure to appear” (FTA) violation, the motorist’s home state agrees to enforce penalties based on the laws of the state where the violation occurred, including license suspension.

That component of the NRVC worked pretty well when jurisdictions were broadly aligned on how to approach FTP and FTA violations. But in recent years, lawmakers in some jurisdictions have expressed greater reluctance to take away someone’s driving privileges simply because they cannot pay fines or appear in court.

“The conversation in many jurisdictions has moved toward seeing a license as a way to empower people—for example, to give them greater access to a job that may be farther away from where they live but provides a better opportunity,” says Chrissy Nizer, a member of the NRVC executive board and administrator of the Maryland Department of Transportation’s Motor Vehicle Administration.

If a person’s license is suspended, it not only makes it difficult to maintain a long-distance commute, but it also inhibits the person’s ability to attend a mandatory court appearance or pay a fee. Dios Arroyo, an NRVC executive board member and director of the Bureau of Licensing at the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, puts it this way: “If someone’s driving privileges are suspended, how are they supposed to be able to go to work to pay the fine?”

Based on this shift in thinking, some states have passed new laws or changed their practices by no longer assessing license-suspension penalties based on FTP/FTA violations, whether the underlying violation occurs within or outside of the home jurisdiction. That puts those states at odds with “other jurisdictions, where the conversation is still about accountability for what’s owed by that person,” Nizer says.

“If we don’t figure out the overarching NRVC, then we’re going to get a hodgepodge of laws that don’t allow that commonality to happen from state to state.”

Chrissy Nizer, NRVC Executive Board Member; Administrator, Maryland Department of Transportation’s Motor Vehicle Administration

In other cases, it’s just messy: In Pennsylvania, for instance, legislators recently passed a law allowing violators to perform community service instead of paying fines for some moving violations. Because Pennsylvania is a party to the NRVC, Arroyo says the state will pass along sanctions for drivers who incur FTP violations in other states—but without offering the community service option, since the law only applies to in-state violations.

Those growing policy gaps are putting pressure on the long-standing NRVC. As the board members look to revise or amend the NRVC, their challenge is finding language that accommodates those policy differences while still facilitating cooperation among jurisdictions—a process that Caras likens to “charting a course through a minefield.”

“The NRVC has to be modernized. We know that,” says Nizer. “Do we change the enforcement mechanism? Are there modifiers or exceptions for certain circumstances? If we don’t figure out the overarching NRVC, then we’re going to get a hodgepodge of laws that don’t allow that commonality to happen from state to state.”

The potential for that fundamental breakdown is where the rubber meets the road. The challenges and policy concerns are real and valid—and so is the imperative to finding some version of a compact that facilitates ongoing cooperation between states. Accordingly, the board is conducting a legislative analysis of all NRVC member jurisdictions to determine both how they’re currently administering NRVC-related requests and the legal mechanism used to secure NRVC participation. The analysis will help assess the compact’s relevance, effectiveness and usage, ultimately shaping a path forward.

“We have to find a middle ground somewhere that will meet everyone’s needs,” says Naomi O’Dell, administrator of the Vehicle Registration and Licensing Division of Hawaii County, Hawaii, and a member of the NRVC executive board. The NRVC “is something that we want to keep because I’m afraid to see what would happen if we didn’t have anything and we didn’t honor each other’s suspensions or revocations.”