5. Traffic Tickets and Unpaid Fines
Current Traffic Tickets. Traffic tickets may often be handled in a number of different ways. Read the back of your citation to obtain information about how to handle current tickets. Click here to see a sample of a Sonoma County Sheriff's Citation & Promise to Appear and scroll down to the back side to read about options or click on the traffic court link below.
Most people would benefit by fighting a ticket if there are any viable defenses or one has the time to see if the arresting officer shows up at a trial in traffic court. Click here for Sonoma County's Traffic Trial Information. Usually a traffic defendant may contest citations in writing without having to appear in court. Click here for Trial by Declaration instructions, and here for an approved Request Form fillable online.
If there are no defenses to a traffic ticket, or you do not wish to fight it, you may wish to elect traffic school during the time limit provided at the bottom of your original Sonoma County citation by asking for the traffic school alternative at the Sonoma County Traffic Court. Click here for an example list of Sonoma County's on-line and in-person Approved Traffic Schools (you must independently confirm any specific school is approved by Sonoma County Traffic Court before you pay any fee or before you enroll), successful completion of which would result in no further points if so ordered by the court. This may help you to avoid any additional points which would cause you to meet or exceed the point limits. Discuss your specific situation with a local Santa Rosa DUI attorney.
Suspended Driver License. You may receive a Collection Notice with respect to unpaid fines. If your driving privileges are suspended due to unpaid traffic tickets (failure to appear--FTA--or failure to pay--FTP), then if you pay off the tickets, the Sonoma County court in Santa Rosa will release its hold on your license and you will be able to reacquire your driving privileges.
The county where you got the ticket while driving is the county which must lift its hold, not the DMV or your county of residence if you live outside Sonoma County. Each county which has a hold on your license for a nonappearance (FTA) or nonpayment (FTP) must be addressed separately. One of the most efficient methods for ensuring you fix every problem causing a suspension is to go to the Santa Rosa or Petaluma DMV office and ask for a long form H-6 driver license printout. Ask the counter clerk to circle each and every item causing a suspension, and the county where each item must be cleared.
Next, in Sonoma County it is usually best to visit the Courthouse Collections Office (or GC services, located next door to the traffic division, which is a private collection agency with the same policies and procedures as Court Collections), or you may call the Sonoma County Court Collections Division at (707) 521-6659, to determine the current status of your matters. Reference each citation number if you have documentation, but be sure to ask for a grand total of all matters including late charges, etc. All old cases (except unsigned citations which resulted in FTA) reside in either court collections or GC services, not traffic court.
Collection Problems and Unaffordable Late Fees
Pending Court Matters. If you have a current criminal court case of any kind in Sonoma County (a serious case or another traffic ticket, or even just on probation for a past case), then the court has jurisdiction to hear you on these old matters, so you or your DUI attorney can try asking the Santa Rosa judge in the current Sonoma County case to examine your old tickets and dismiss some of them, and/or remove the late penalty fees assessed pursuant to Penal Code Section 1214.1, and set up a payment plan for the remainder of the fees so that you can afford to pay and successfully cause the removal of the Sonoma County hold on your license.
You or your Santa Rosa DUI lawyer can point out to the court that if you can drive legally, then you may not have as many legal problems in the future and you may be able to start getting your life back in order by addressing substantial personal challenges such as employment, child care, etc. If you are or were incarcerated, then you can ask the court for credit for time served to simply dismiss all of the tickets and release the hold on your license.
Failure To Appear. If you do not have a current court case but you receive a DMV Notice Of Suspension for failure to appear (rather than failure to pay after appearing) then usually you can arrange with the court collections department to pay one-half of the amount owed and obtain a payment plan for the remainder in exchange for the court lifting its license hold.
Failure to Pay. If you receive a DMV notice of suspension for failure to pay a ticket after appearing in court and promising to pay a fine, but you have a recognized reason for nonpayment within the allowed time, such as military service, incarceration, hospitalization, or death of a family member, then the collections department may lift its license hold if you can pay a satisfactory amount and arrange payments for the remaining owed. If you have a compelling reason not listed above, for example homelessness or drug addiction, then you may wish to consider writing a letter to the judge as described below, to ask for the same arrangements. You should consult with a local Sonoma County DUI attorney about your specific situations.
If you are suspended for failure to pay after appearing in court, and you are able to afford the original bail amount of the tickets, then you may wish to consider paying that amount at the Santa Rosa courthouse and petitioning the Sonoma County Traffic Court to waive the late penalty fees on any remaining totals pursuant to Sonoma County's Local Rule 8.12. This approach typically works best when you have a recognized valid reason for nonpayment within the allowed time, such as military service, incarceration, hospitalization, or death of a family member. Any compelling hardship reasons should be included in such a petition to the Sonoma court, including economic and family hardship.
Click here to see an example of such a court request with the Sonoma County Petition and the Napa County Petition to dismiss accumulated late fees and penalties.
Letter to the Judge. You may wish to write a letter to the Sonoma County traffic court judge in Santa Rosa to ask for leniency due to extraordinary circumstances which prevented you from appearing or paying in a timely fashion. A succinct, well-written letter which acknowledges responsibility and presents compelling reasons for nonpayment and offers an affordable payment plan may accomplish the reduction of a substantial amount of your accumulated total or even dismissal of tickets and release of your license.
You may obtain contact information on this site for the Sonoma County courts and the traffic, fines and collection departments in Santa Rosa by clicking here on Sonoma County Traffic Court, or click here to get specific collections answers to Frequently Asked Collections Questions.
Failure to Pay Judgement in Traffic or Accident-Related Lawsuit
A related "failure to pay" suspension involves a driver license suspension for someone who failed to pay a judgement awarded by a court in an action described in Vehicle Code sections 16370-16381. Typically, a judgement creditor (presumably the person or entity whom you owe money) submits a Form DL30 to DMV swearing to certain facts about the judgement debt. Click here to see an example of an "Order of Suspension" describing the DMV action, the judgement and certain options. You can explore obtaining payments on a judgement as described in section 16379 to get rid of the suspension, or explore obtaining a restricted license as described in section 16072 to alleviate the hardship of a suspension.