Traffic fine scofflaws mostly ignore amnesty offer

Sonoma County drivers, even when given a opportunity to pay off old traffic tickets at a 50 percent discount, still won't pay.

A statewide amnesty program gave scofflaw drivers a chance to make good on their debts. Those who paid pre-2009 fines during the first six months of 2012 could have them slashed in half.

But the results have been puny.

In Sonoma and Lake counties, where the unpaid total exceeded $41 million, the program didn't even bring in one percent of the outstanding debt.

"Was it an effective use of our resources? One could argue that people weren't going to pay anyway, so 50 percent is better than nothing," said Jose Guillen, Sonoma County Superior Court chief executive officer.

In Sonoma County, the amount of unpaid traffic fines prior to 2009 was $29 million, but the amnesty generated just $140,094.76 on 492 citations, according to Guillen.

Lake County's Treasurer-Tax Collector reported to Lake County News that collections of $99,792.86 for 207 cases eligible for the program. They still have more than 12,000 unpaid tickets worth more than $12 million, the news agency reported.

The discount applied to vehicle code and non-vehicle code infractions, such as speeding, that were due to be paid in full on or before Jan. 1, 2009. The discount did not apply to parking, drunken driving or reckless driving tickets.

Statewide, more than 6 million tickets qualified for the discount, according to the Administrative Office of the Courts. State officials expected to collect $46 million of more than $2 billion in unpaid tickets.

But Sonoma County officials don't yet know if the money will even cover the cost to administer the program. The county hired two part-time workers to handle the amnesty process. The revenue will be used to pay for those employees as well as overhead, such as setting up the computer programs, Guillen said.

Unpaid tickets go through three rounds of collections. The first round is handled by court staff; the second is processed by the state franchise tax board. Finally, they debts are shipped to private collection firms.

Guillen said Sonoma County now plans to examine the oldest cases and discharge some of the uncollected debt.

The state last offered an amnesty in 1992. That program collected $15 million statewide, according to Transportationnation.org.

The amnesty program was approved by the California legislature and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in October 2011.