What Happens When You Forget to Pay A Traffic Ticket?
GULF SHORES Ala.
By: Rick McCann
November 1, 2024
Across the country, millions of tickets are issued by law enforcement for traffic infractions and those numbers continue to go up as more drivers are hitting the roads.
In 2018, law enforcement agencies issued over 40 million traffic tickets but according to the most recent data, in 2023 about 42 million speeding tickets were issued, which is about 112,328 per day. This substantial increase is mainly due to speed and red-light technology that monitors and records the violations and then sends out the traffic citations through the mail.
Traffic offenses, or moving violations as they are also known, can range from speeding to reckless driving, not stopping at a stop sign or going through a red light, driving under the influence, and dozens of other violations.
When a person is stopped by a law enforcement officer and issued a citation for the offense, one of the things that the officer will have the driver do is sign the ticket which is not a plea of guilty, but rather an agreement that the traffic offender will either pay the ticket before a certain date or appear in court to answer the charge.
Unfortunately, many people do not understand the seriousness of not paying for a traffic ticket.
First, moving violations in many states including Alabama are “Misdemeanors” and when a moving violation citation is issued to the driver, they “are” being arrested.
Instead of the driver being taken into physical custody and taken to the jail for booking, the officer issues the driver that ticket and releases the person.
Some moving violations are felonies with much stricter penalties and drivers are usually taken into police custody and transported to the area jail for those offenses.
Every day, in every state, hundreds, if not thousands of people are arrested and booked into jail because they either ignored and didn’t pay for the ticket that they received or they failed to go to court.
When this happens, the police won’t go hunting the person down. Instead, the warrant is logged into the police database and the next time that law enforcement encounters the individual, and runs their name through the police computer system, that warrant, called an FTA-Failure to Appear Arrest Warrant will show up and more than likely the individual will be arrested and taken into physical custody.
Imagine that you received a ticket in March and forgot about it. You didn’t pay the ticket fee, and you didn’t go to court. Now, in September, you’re on your way to work and the police pull you over for another traffic violation or maybe you’re involved in a traffic collision and police are called.
It’s standard procedure for the officer to run your information through the police computers and that Failure to Appear warrant “will” show up.
At that moment let’s say you’re in Spanish Fort but the warrant was issued in Orange Beach where you were originally given the citation.
The officer’s dispatcher will call the originating agency and if they want to “extradite” you, police will handcuff you, tow your vehicle, and turn you over to the original police department.
There are few exceptions and most of the time, even for a traffic offense, the person will go through the same processing procedure as any person arrested, for any offense.
The driver will be fingerprinted, photographed, assigned a criminal case and a jail inmate number that stays in the police system and when the person bonds out a new court date will be issued along with a new charge, “Failure to Appear in Court”.
Some moving violations will remain on your criminal record, and your driving history and they will also impact your insurance premiums.
Most states also report moving violations to insurance companies.
Also, most states are part of interstate compacts, which allow local enforcement agencies to exchange traffic violation data with other states.
Nearly every state also participates in the DLC, an agreement to report out-of-state traffic violations to the driver’s home state.
Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol or Narcotics, Hit-and-Run Accidents, Refusal to Take a Breathalyzer Test, Fleeing and Eluding, Reckless Endangerment, or Leaving the Scene of an Accident are serious crimes and the person could face many legal consequences including incarceration, suspension of their driver’s license and possible lawsuits.
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