Commercial Vehicle Citation Defense

Two doors, both closed. Deferred disposition and the driving safety course are how ordinary motorists keep a ticket off the record. Texas excludes commercial license holders from both, and the exclusion follows the person rather than the vehicle.

Two records, not one. The court file and the roadside inspection record are separate systems. Winning in court does nothing to the safety data, and the safety data is what insurers and shippers read.

Sadovsky & Ellis defends commercial drivers, owner-operators and motor carriers in the municipal and justice courts of Bexar County and across the South Texas counties along I-35, I-10, and the Eagle Ford field.

Start here

Commercial vehicle enforcement produces five distinct kinds of problem, and they run on different law with different consequences. A speeding ticket and an overweight ticket look similar at the roadside and behave nothing alike afterwards.

Each of these has its own page, because each deserves more than a paragraph.

What makes commercial citations different

Under article 45A.301 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, deferred disposition does not apply to a motor vehicle violation committed by someone who holds, or held at the time, a commercial driver’s license. Article 45A.351(c) closes the driving safety course the same way. Both provisions took effect January 1, 2025 with the recodification of Chapter 45.

Federal law backs it up. Under 49 C.F.R. § 384.226 a state may not mask a commercial license holder’s conviction, defer imposition of judgment on it, or divert it off the record. There is no quiet resolution available.

And the consequences are counted mechanically. Two serious traffic violations within three years is a sixty-day disqualification under 49 C.F.R. § 383.51; a third is a hundred and twenty days. A driver who pays the first two tickets to avoid missing a day of work discovers the arithmetic on the third.

Meanwhile the roadside violation attaches to the motor carrier’s DOT number whether or not any citation is ever written, and stays there whether or not the citation is later dismissed.

Who we represent

Company drivers, owner-operators, and motor carriers — though never a driver and the carrier in the same matter, because their interests can diverge sharply. An out-of-service violation after a dispatch instruction is the clearest example of that.

• Company drivers — whose employment usually depends on the outcome, and who must report a conviction to the carrier in writing within thirty days under 49 C.F.R. § 383.31.
• Owner-operators — who carry both problems at once, the license and the safety record, and pay for both themselves.
• Small fleets — where one bad quarter of roadside data moves insurance pricing enough to matter to the whole operation.
• Carriers facing a review — where the exposure is a safety rating rather than a fine, and an unsatisfactory rating carries an operating prohibition.
• Shippers and loaders — who are sometimes surprised to learn that the offense of loading an overweight vehicle reaches past the driver who received the ticket.
• Drivers cited in a personal vehicle — who are still outside deferred disposition and defensive driving, because the Texas exclusions key on the license, not the truck.

Where we appear

Bexar County municipal court and its justice courts, and the county and justice courts of Comal, Guadalupe, Wilson, Atascosa, Medina, Kendall, Karnes, Frio, La Salle, Dimmit, McMullen, Live Oak and Gonzales counties.

Most commercial citations in this part of Texas are written on I-35 and I-10 or on the ranch roads feeding the Eagle Ford field, which means the court on the citation is frequently well outside the county the driver lives in. In most fine-only cases an attorney can appear on the driver’s behalf, which is usually the practical reason to hire one.

How a commercial citation is handled here

Frequently Asked Questions