Disclaimer: I’ve been pulled over twice in my life. Not a crazy driver, just curious.
What exactly happens when you get pulled over for a traffic violation and the officer “runs your license”?
What can the officer see? Is it tied to the license plate? Driver’s license number? Is there a computer program or what?
All I know about this aspect of police work is what you see on TV.
Thanks!
Your driving status, address, physical identifiers. Some states can provide a photo, and past traffic convictions, as well as handgun lic. status Forgot to add also wanted status.
Ours also runs for warrants and local criminal history.
In NY there is no direct link of your license to your vehicle, but a check of a vehicle registration will allow a quick link to the owners driving status.
Badic info: name, dob, address and status of license, and any warrants or associated hits.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
In Wisconsin when you run a license and license plate you see the following:
DOT Record
In State Criminal History
Warrants
NCIC: National Cautions
All the above other officers mentioned and up here it also lets us know if you have a concealed carry permit. Plus any officer safety advisements from previous officers whom may have had contact with you.
Pat
In Oklahoma the license shows driver info and a history check although I’m not sure how far back it goes. Also wants and warrants.
The vehicle tag will come back with registered owner and last address. Also, depending on state will have whether you are insured or not. Texas and Oklahoma for certain, but I’m not sure of other states.
Cool. Thanks!
So is there a universal program that’s used by most jurisdictions? For example, most sit-down chain restaurants (Red Lobster, Outback, Olive Garden, etc.) use a program called MICROS to enter food orders and manage inventory. Is there a widely used program for LE or is it just different places use different things?
Also, on TV the officers will “call it in” to a dispatcher I suppose. Is that real or just Hollywood? It seems like a logistics nightmare to have someone constantly keeping track of dozens of officers and what they’re doing from moment to moment. Seems like you could use a laptop and just go from status to status.
I really have no clue of the scope of the operation that law enforcement is. I think I understand that the purpose of saying “officer #44 is stopped at location A doing a traffic stop” is to make sure that if in 20 minutes that officer hasn’t responded, something went wrong. Is that the point of all the communication?
Again, thanks for the information. Just trying to learn something new.
Everyone uses something different but as you can imagine there are only so many vendors providing this kind of software. You tend to see a lot of regional commonality. These second party software programs all connect to NCIC and each states DMV records. You basicallyy have the source (NCIC, DMVs) connected to end users by the third party software.
This is not to be confused with Computer Aided Dispatch. CAD is what you’re referencing when they are looking at where officers are and how long they’ve been there. It tricks calls for service, etc.
For ease of use, CAD will frequently have the NCIC/DMV integration so the dispatcher doesn’t have to switch between terminals or applications.
Every officer should/is supposed to call in for every traffic stop. Yes it can be a nightmare for the dispatchers but it’s for officer safety. Depending on the size of the city and the number of officers on duty, there are probably multiple dispatchers on duty. The city could be divided up into sectors/beats and there could be a separate dispatcher for each one.
Just a thought… Go for a “ride-a-long” with one of your local police officers. You’ll learn a few things, get a glimpse of the job and you can have him run your license so you’ll see exactly what comes up. 
Bad idea for the officer if he does. This is a closely regulated system. There must be a legitimate Law Enforcement purpose for accessing that information. Running a friends license just to see can at the minimum get you days off but most of the time leads to termination.
Wasn’t my intention to give bad advice. Thanks for the correction.
Very true an officer who used to work for us got fired for mis using our state data base.
Pat
No worries my friend. Just wanted to clarify.
I always called in the tags for status (validity and if stolen) before getting out of the car, and then run the drivers license for same.
NCIC / VCIN and DMV records usually checked by the dispatcher.
Whether or not they received a summons (traffic ticket) was dependent upon the results of the above and the drivers’ attitude along with the nature of the cause for the initial stop.
For us: NCIC, Holds, Warrants, DMV rec, past offenses in county/muni
It’s called SCMODS. Just ask Jake and Elwood. 
Some of the programs I’ve used depending upon dept and state/jurisdiction are Spillman, WASIS, and ILETS. These are the most used for WA/ID in my experience. Each state of course has their own acronym but program is usually similar.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
On our program, When I run your tag, I will receive all of the pertinent info regarding your registration status, and it will automatically run the registered owner’s driver’s licence as well.
I will receive GCIC and NCIC returns on your information as well as sex offender status, probation/parole status. This info is received any time your info is entered.