DC Ticket Amnesty Program Ends Today

 It’s the last day for the District of Columbia’s Ticket Amnesty Program, and it’s the last chance for ticket scofflaws to wipe their slate clean. The program, which ends today (Friday), allows anyone who received a parking ticket, a moving violation or a photo enforcement ticket prior to January 1, 2010 to pay the ticket without paying the penalty that has been assessed for late payment.

For this reason, the region’s largest motorists’ advocate, AAA Mid-Atlantic, is urging the late-paying drivers, who owe more than $355.6 million in derelict fines to the District government, to make amends voluntarily and to pay up now, or face harsher consequences later.

“So far, eligible motorists have only paid a mere pittance, some $3.1 million, of the mountain of unpaid tickets.  Yet the days of grace are coming to an end, and sooner than later, they will have to bear the full penalty of leaving their outstanding tickets unpaid and on the books,” said John B. Townsend II, Manager of Public and Government Affairs for AAA Mid-Atlantic. “In the future, the District government will launch its in-house debt collection service that will track down ticket scofflaws with bulldog tenacity and take them to court for refusing to pay their outstanding tickets.”

Under the Delinquent Debt Recovery Act of 2011 (DDRA), the District government would establish a new centralized debt-collection office, namely, the Central Collection Unit (CCU). In turn, the CCU would be empowered to hunt down debtors and ticket deadbeats, including non-District residents, primarily motorists from Maryland and Virginia who thought they had escaped the District’s elongated arm of the law by living outside its confines.

Out-of-towners, who owe millions to the District in ticket fines or fees, will no longer have the comfort of a safe haven at their home address. Once enacted by the District Council, the new law would give the CFO the authority to file or place liens against motorists and shirkers, refusing to square their outstanding tickets and to initiate the procedure for license suspension against drivers with tickets, including out-of-District drivers.  Under this new system, motorists in arrears to the District for past-due tickets and fines could also be threatened with bank levies and wage garnishments, noted Townsend.

By the way, of the $3.1 million collected to date in the Ticket Amnesty Program, Maryland motorists have paid more than $1.5 million in outstanding fines. This reflects the fact that the vast majority (82.6 percent) of those motorists who owe past-due tickets handed down by the District actually live outside the District.

For example, Maryland drivers hold 37.6 percent of the amnesty-qualified tickets. Meanwhile, Virginia drivers are on the lam for 22.7 percent of the outstanding citations. District residents owe 17.4 percent. The remaining 22.3 percent of reprieve-eligible citations belong to motorists from jurisdictions outside the Washington metro area.

Looking back, 2001 was the last time the District government offered a ticket amnesty program. During that time, the city recovered about $6 million in unpaid fines from motorists who owned up to their tickets.

This time around, the District Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has only collected just over half that amount. However, with just one day left before the Ticket Amnesty Program ends, city officials say they are confident they will reach their goal.