​​Child Passenger Safety, Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) Conviction Data

People in California who don’t properly restrain their children in vehicles can be ticketed for Vehicle Codes 27360 (ages 0-8 in the rear seat) or 27360.5 (ages 8-16). People who leave their children unattended in vehicles can be ticketed for Vehicle Code 15620. These tickets are citations given by either local (police or sheriff) or state (California Highway Patrol) law enforcement. (CHP Citation Data)  Once cited for one of these violations, a person is either convicted or the citation is dismissed. If a person is convicted then the courts send this information to DMV and it’s recorded as a conviction.

The Vehicle Occupant Safety Program (VOSP) is providing conviction data from the DMV and citation data from the CHP on occupant protection related vehicle code violations for you to be able to see the results from your CPS collaborations and outreach activities. Use the information in all the vehicle codes provided to compare and contrast between years and across counties.

For an explanation of how to use the data in this site to help you to see how actively the CPS law is being enforced (citation data) and how actively the courts are fining the person found guilty of violating the law (conviction data), read our tips for interpreting this data and using it in your work.

The conviction data is provided to VOSP by the DMV.  Data is summarized by year (for the last 10 years), vehicle code, and the conviction.  Convictions are sent from the courts to DMV where it is recorded as a “conviction” or a “failure to appear”.  For purposes of determining all convictions for your county, combining the categories of “conviction” and “failure to appear” is appropriate.  However, for most counties the numbers in the “failure to appear category” are small, and do not make much of an impact in the totals. 

• Conviction includes anyone who pays the fine, goes to traffic school, goes to a violator class, or other option provided by the court, as long as they are convicted (including contesting the citation and losing). 
• Failure to Appear includes if someone contest a citation and asks to see a judge, but does not show up at the court.  Once a person shows up in front of the court, a “failure to appear” turns into a conviction. 

Occupancy Protection Restraint Conviction Data, 2005 - Present

Please refer to the DMV Conviction Data (PDF) to access state or county specific data.  Upon selection, the first tab will feature state spedific data and the subsequent tabs will feature county specifc data.