Veh. Code, § 13551 · Article 4. Procedure
Veh. Code, § 13551
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) Whenever the department revokes or suspends the privilege of any person to operate a motor vehicle, the revocation or suspension shall apply to all driver’s licenses held by that person, and, unless previously surrendered to the court, all of those licenses shall be surrendered to the department, or, pursuant to Section 13388, 23612, or 13382, to a peace officer on behalf of the department. Whenever the department cancels a driver’s license, the license shall be surrendered to the department. All suspended licenses shall be retained by the department. The department shall return the license to the licensee, or may issue the person a new license upon the expiration of the period of suspension or revocation, if the person is otherwise eligible for a driver’s license.
(b) The department shall return the license to the licensee, or may issue the person a new license, whenever the department determines that the grounds for suspension, revocation, or cancellation did not exist at the time the action was taken, if the person is otherwise eligible for a driver’s license.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 1998, Ch. 118, Sec. 3.18. Effective January 1, 1999. Operative July 1, 1999, by Sec. 85 of Ch. 118.
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=13551.
- Text hash
- sha256 93b0554afb4c41088902afc34c7f6f0096a1bb157298a0c1a27d7ccd7edf9eb4
- 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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