It may be possible for you to have your license suspended in California if you fail to comply with the TX seat belt ticket you received. To comply you normally would pay the ticket or plead not guilty and fight the charge in court. It will depend upon what jurisdiction in Texas you received the ticket as to exactly what they would do if you ignored the ticket but normally they would find you guilty of the offense, inform the TX DPS of your failure to comply and can even send you to collections so that this unpaid ticket could also end up on your credit report. Some states will put out a warrant for unpaid tickets. For example the municipal court for the city of Austin says that if you fail to make a plea for each violation shown on your ticket, a warrant will be issued for your arrest. Your warrant may be cancelled if you plead "no contest" or "guilty" to the warrant charge and pay the fine. If you fail to make a plea to each violation on your ticket within 30 days of the violation date, the Austin court will: - Issue a warrant for your arrest (additional $50.00 fee)
- Charge the Standard Fine amount.
- Send a request to the Texas Department of Public Safety for Denial of Driver License Renewal and a $30.00 fee may be added
- Refer your case to a collection agency after 60 days with a possible 30% fee added to the amount owed.
[Let CarInsurance.com help you find affordable auto insurance now.] Even though you live in California license Texas can suspend your right to drive in their state due to an unpaid traffic ticket. Also we have heard from many people in which Texas then informs their home state of the unpaid ticket and requests the home state to suspend the person's license there until the issue is dealt with. So Texas courts or their DMV can contact the California Department of Motor Vehicles and request that your CA driver's license be suspended due to your failure to pay / failure to appear for the seat belt ticket you received in TX. States are connected by various agreements and do try to regulate motorists and inform their home licensing authorities when a person is convicted of traffic violations and/or fail to pay or otherwise legally take care of traffic citations. Texas and California are both members of the Driver's License Compact (DLC) which requires member states to inform the home state of a driver if they are convicted of moving violations out of state. The home state then determines if the offense will be put on the motorist's motor vehicle record (MVR) and assigned points. California does record out of state traffic ticket convictions on your CA driving record and assigns them 1 or 2 points depending upon how the offense matches up with ones listed on the California violation points schedule. Texas is also a member of the Non-Resident Violator Compact (NRVC) while California is not. The NRVC requires member states to suspend the driver's license of those who get traffic tickets for moving violations in other states and fail to pay them. Though California is one of only six states that are not members of the compact the CA DMV representative we contacted says then can still suspend your California driver's license for failing to take care of out of state tickets. So it turns out that the California DMV adheres to the tenets of the compact (NRVC), even though the state technically is not a part of the agreement, according to the CA DMV. The representative said your California license could be suspended for an unresolved citation from Texas or any other state. If your Texas ticket is already past its due date / court date then they may have already suspended your right to drive there and is now requesting your home state of California to do the same. And if CA does suspend your license that means your license is suspended in every state since they are the issuing state of your license. Keep in mind that all states also check the National Driver Register (NDR) when you apply for a new license or renew your license. So if somehow CA did not suspend your license after getting a request from TX to do so and you continued to do nothing about the Texas tickets, likely Texas will have suspended your license there and put this information on the NDR. Then when you next went to renew your California license you would be denied due to the suspension / hold on your license in Texas. The CA DMV would then require that you take care of the issues in Texas before your CA license could be renewed.
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You can read about the Texas seat belt law here under the TX Transportation Code Section 545.413 if you want to see about fighting the ticket. It became part of TX law back in September 2009 that those 17 and older had to be buckled up in the back seat; those 16 and under are already required to wear a seat belt in the back seat. Offenders, drivers or passengers, depending on the situation, could be fined $25 to $50 if an adult is not buckled up in the back seat the Texas Department of Public Safety noted. Offenders could already be fined $100 to $200 if a child is not buckled up in the back seat. If you do pay the Texas seat belt ticket it will be reported to the CA DMV who will add it to your California driving record however no points are assigned. Get low cost car insurance rates for California here. | 
