Making sense of Texas CHL license numbers

[seamusTX]

In another thread, someone mentioned that CHL license numbers have seven or eight digits. There are some 400,000 active licenses. How can this be explained?

In the first place, although there are currently 400,000 active licenses, some number of licenses that were issued are no longer active. The licensee moved out of state, died, or for whatever reason did not renew. However, that number probably doesn't get the total much above 500,000.

Numbers of this type usually are not issued sequentially. They contain some kind of coded information that a person in the know can use to see if the number is obviously bogus.

For example, in another state where I lived, two digits of the driver license number were the same as last two digits of the year of the holder's birth. Bartenders (and a lot of other people) knew that, but a kid trying to make a fake license to buy alcohol might not. (Texas doesn't use this particular trick.)

Another method is to build in a checksum. For those who aren't computer geeks, that means that when you add up all the individual digits of the license number, the sum should fit some pattern.

For example, if the license number is 01234567, the sum of all the digits is 28. It could be that the last digit of the checksum is always 8.

I can't see any pattern involving year of birth, year of first issue, or anything similar. Does anyone have a clue?

- Jim

[G.A. Heath]

There is actually no need for any kind of checksum, or other coding, in the CHL number because the DL # is included as well so that any coded information is there. My CHL has eight digits (The first a 0), and was probably someone else's prior to being mine because Texas will recycle the numbers (someone who let theirs lapse and did not renew in time will get a new number).

On another note I did meet an older gentleman who showed me that his DL had three digits prefixed with five zeros, so I doubt there is any kind of encoding in the TX DL # as well. I work in the public where people must show me some kind of photo ID in order to get specific services from my employer so I see a lot of IDs, DLs, Law Enforcement IDs, and I have even had people show me their CHLs (we use the DL number from those) because their DL/ID photo looks too bad.

[lrb111]

They have to be recycling. Mine starts off with 01. My wife got hers two years later, and starts with 000. Purely by numbers my wife's would have been among the first issued in the first year. But it was over ten years later.

[mr surveyor]

or, they could be using a hexadecimal, base 32 (or some other iteration) system. With that type system, even 8 digit codes can be made to encompass very large numbers


surv

[WildBill]

Does anyone have a clue? - Jim

Edited because of Jim's answer.

[seamusTX]

Crossfire settled the question in the other thread that I referred to: After the first year, the pre-printed application number became the license number.

I had forgotten about that.

- Jim

[WildBill]

Crossfire settled the question in the other thread that I referred to: After the first year, the pre-printed application number became the license number.

I had forgotten about that.

- Jim

Me too. But where to the application numbers come from? Are they sequential or random? Didn't the application numbers get assigned to a certain DPS instructor?

[seamusTX]

But where [do] the application numbers come from? Are they sequential or random?

I don't know. I've never looked at a bundle of them straight from DPS.

Obviously the numbers on paper applications can't have anything to do with the applicant, because they are handed out randomly.

Online applications could be different.

- Jim

[lrb111]

Crossfire settled the question in the other thread that I referred to: After the first year, the pre-printed application number became the license number.

I had forgotten about that.

- Jim

Me too. But where to the application numbers come from? Are they sequential or random? Didn't the application numbers get assigned to a certain DPS instructor?

Yes, they did.
At one time instructors could even transfer numbered certificates to another instructor. It became a hassle for DPS though, as they lost track of them.

[snorri]

Yes, they did.
At one time instructors could even transfer numbered certificates to another instructor. It became a hassle for DPS though, as they lost track of them.

I think certificate numbers are different than application numbers. When I renewed my CHL number stayed the same but I'm pretty sure the training certificate number was completely different.

[davidtx]

On another note I did meet an older gentleman who showed me that his DL had three digits prefixed with five zeros, so I doubt there is any kind of encoding in the TX DL # as well.

I agree. I lived out of the state for 18 years. When I moved back and went to get my TDL, I tried to get my old DL # back (yeah - I still remember the number - you used to have to use it everywhere). They looked it up and told me the name of the lady that has it now.

[lrb111]

Yes, they did.
At one time instructors could even transfer numbered certificates to another instructor. It became a hassle for DPS though, as they lost track of them.

I think certificate numbers are different than application numbers. When I renewed my CHL number stayed the same but I'm pretty sure the training certificate number was completely different.

Originally the certificate numbers were the number you were going to be issued for your license. on a renewal your license number stays the same.
If your instructor used a pre-numbered certificate, it would not have mattered to the original license.

Fwiw, DPS canceled using numbers on any pre-printed material. Filling out a renewal application online is the only way I know of to get your number on a application, now

[Crossfire]

Yes, they did.
At one time instructors could even transfer numbered certificates to another instructor. It became a hassle for DPS though, as they lost track of them.

I think certificate numbers are different than application numbers. When I renewed my CHL number stayed the same but I'm pretty sure the training certificate number was completely different.

The yellow application was numbered, and that was the number that would become your license number. The training completion certificates had an entirely different number that only tracked to instructors.

Those certificates were a valuable commodity, as instructors ordered them from DPS, and had to pay $5 each for them. You could not teach a class without them. Sometimes DPS filled those orders quickly, sometimes not. That's when the transferring from instructor to instructor happened. See how much of a paperwork nightmare this was?

Life as a CHL instructor is SO much better now that DPS assigns the license number AFTER receiving the application.

[donniet]

When the CHL program started, they were numbering them sequentially. Somewhere areound '97, they changed it. Instructors got numbered applications, and your application number became your license number when issued.http://www.Crossfire-Training.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Crossfire,
This certainly deepens the mystery. My license was issued in mid 1996 when I lived in Brazoria County. My main reason in the beginning was to be completely legal when traveling, as I commuted weekly between the Metroplex and Angleton. In July of 1997, I moved to the Metroplex and did the required address change. I admit, I didn't pay much attention to the number, but I don't think it has been changed as there would be no need. It has been renewed twice and I do know the present number matched the last license issued. If I recall correctly we are asked to give our license number on the renewal request.

By the way. Thanks for all the good information you and the board provide.

[PUCKER]

I got my original CHL back in '96 from what I recall. I renewed it and then "took a break" and then had to start over again as I waited for more than a year to renew it (several years actually), from what I recall, my current license number is the same as the original.