Veh. Code, § 12501 · Article 1. Persons Required to Be Licensed, Exemptions, and Age Limits
Veh. Code, § 12501
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
The following persons are not required to obtain a driver’s license:
(a) An officer or employee of the United States, while operating a motor vehicle owned or controlled by the United States on the business of the United States, except when the motor vehicle being operated is a commercial motor vehicle, as defined in Section 15210.
(b) Any person while driving or operating implements of husbandry incidentally operated or moved over a highway, except as provided in Section 36300 or 36305.
(c) Any person driving or operating an off-highway motor vehicle subject to identification, as defined in Section 38012, while driving or operating such motor vehicle as provided in Section 38025. Nothing in this subdivision authorizes operation of a motor vehicle by a person without a valid driver’s license upon any offstreet parking facility, as defined in subdivision (c) of Section 12500.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 1990, Ch. 1360, Sec. 10.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH§ionNum=12501.
- Text hash
- sha256 362e5eb7324986ed01442ca42eaa47b33b18523453e5a1f135de376bedf27437
- Composed by
- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
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