The Ol' Traffic Ticket Scam

OK, so suppose you go to renew your drivers’ license, as you’ve done many times over the years, and the Department of Motor Vehicles tells you the license can’t be renewed until you settle an old – over 20 years old – ticket from another state. Either you immediately send the State of Pennsylvania $25 or, in 10 days when the current license expires, you will lose your ability to drive.

“What ticket?” you babble. “I don’t remember having an outstanding ticket. I’ve certainly never, ever been notified about a suspension…”

“Nevertheless, Sir, our records indicate that your license was suspended in Pennsylvania for failure to pay a ticket.”

“I haven’t lived in Pennsylvania since…oh, gee…since 1985...or maybe ‘86. If my license was suspended in Pennsylvania for all these years, how have I been able to get one here in the meantime?”

“Improved inter-state communications, I suppose…”

“What was this ticket for…?”

“I’m sorry, Sir…we don’t have that information.” Interstate communication has improved only so much.

“What am I supposed to do about it?"

“You’ll need to phone PennDOT to arrange the $25 payment.” PennDOT is Pennsylvania’s bureau of driver’s licensing.

“But a $25 payment for what?”

“For the outstanding ticket…”

So, you call PennDOT, which tells you to call the Pittsburgh Municipal Court, which says that while they do have a record of a traffic violation for failure to come to a full stop at a stop sign committed in 1984, they no longer keep records from the 1980s of which tickets were paid.

“Then there is no proof I haven’t paid the ticket?”

“No, Sir. But do you have proof that you did?”

“You’re saying I’m being fined – possibly for a second time – for Pennsylvania’s failure to keep records? Don’t you think that if I’d really failed to pay the ticket, I would have been told that my license was in danger of suspension?”

“Maybe you were.”

“I wasn’t!”

“Look, if you’d like, you can apply for a restoration letter that will take 10 days to process. Once you receive it in the mail, you sign it and return it to us and we’ll clear your record with PennDOT, after you send them a $25 restoration fee – no credit card payments, by the way. It won’t take more than 30-40 days.”

Of course, you won’t be able to drive to work without that license, making this debacle an extremely expensive proposition… for you. PennDOT, by contrast, has $25 in its pocket – whether or not you contest the ticket – which is an insignificant sum unless receipts for other decades-old tickets around the country have also “failed” to be found. In which case, this could be a rather lucrative arrangement, whether the victim pays a $25 “restoration fee” or a $25 fine for a ticket that may or may not have already paid.

You might call the Attorney General, of course, but his office will tell you it has no jurisdiction over PennDOT and will refer you to the Inspector General. If you then call the Inspector General, he will refer you right back to the Attorney General or, when reminded that the Attorney General has no authority over PennDOT, to the governor.

Now one might be tempted to shrug this off as an amusing example of bureaucratic lunacy – particularly if it isn’t your drivers’ license being suspended – but at least one important question needs to be asked: who’s the genius behind this revenue-making scheme?

Stephanie Block is the editor of the New Mexico-based Los Pequenos newspaper and a founder of the Catholic Media Coalition.