Licensing, insurance and the law
You are 17 with a provisional license. In your first year of driving you are convicted of two traffic violations. What can DMV do?
- Bar you from driving for 30 days unless a licensed adult at least 25 years old rides with you. Correct answer
- Suspend your driving privilege for six months and put you on probation for one year.
- Suspend your driving privilege for one year.
Why
The provisional license works like a ladder. Two strikes, whether two at-fault collisions, two convictions or one of each, put you on the second rung: for 30 days you may not drive unless a licensed adult who is at least 25 rides with you. Six months of suspension plus a year of probation is the next rung, for three collisions, three convictions or a mix of them. A one-year suspension sits on a different list, the one for a conviction for using alcohol or a controlled substance between ages 15 and 20. These consequences also outlast your eighteenth birthday, since turning 18 does not wipe out restrictions, suspensions or probation already in place.
Where this comes from
California Driver's Handbook, June 2025 edition. The correct answer is Bar you from driving for 30 days unless a licensed adult at least 25 years old rides with you.
The rule behind this one
License, points and insurance in California goes through the whole topic, with the page of the California Driver's Handbook behind every rule.
More on licensing, insurance and the law
- At your DMV administrative hearing, you want to question the person who prepared a document DMV is using as evidence. What does the handbook say?
- You back into a parked car and cannot find its owner. What must you do?
- After a traffic stop, an officer gives you a Notice of Priority Reexamination of Driver with the top box checked. How long do you have to contact DMV before your driving privilege is suspended automatically?
- You are 60 and have completed the Mature Driver Improvement Program. How long is your certificate valid, and how do you renew it?