I got a couple tickets that never arrived. I didn’t find out until I tried to rent a van to move some stuff and my driving report came back with two convictions.
It turned out that despite my many attempts to remove a “mailing address” from my driver’s licence, and a couple of primary residence changes, the “mailing address” got the tickets, but the PO Box was long closed.
Since the tickets were due to fall off my report in a year, I just crossed my fingers and ignored them, but I was still sore because both would have been contested at the time. One because it was the other guy’s fault, and his insurance paid, and the other was for a stop sign completely hidden by bushes.
I’m pretty sure return receipt + certified = $5.21 for <1oz.
Two factors make it seem perfectly plausible to me.
- This woman is of impeccable integrity and I have known her for years. Sure, there is the slim possibility she used the neighbor excuse to cover her own slipup, but she has confided other things in me that lead me to believe she was being honest.
- My house is full of baskets of mail. My wife claims she weeds out the bills before tossing the daily pile into yet another basket, but I sometimes find important papers buried under weeks of junk mail. I can easily imagine the neighbor doing this.
Did she pay bail or a fine?
The exact costs of the fees wasn’t what I was getting at. What I was saying is that if they do implement something that says that tickets have to be mailed this way, you can be sure there will be an (justified) extra fee for the service. People need to understand that they get to complain about one thing, either the ticket not having proof of delivery OR the fee. But they can’t complain about both.
I didn’t count postage in my numbers, but still only comes out to $5.11. I may be missing a dime somewhere.
JoeyP - I understand your point, but I’m just saying that I don’t think it would be reasonable or expected for them to raise the fines $10 or $20 on an extra 85 cents charge. But, then again, I’m sure it wouldn’t stop them, either.
Okay, so maybe they don’t want the extra cost or trouble of sending out certified/return receipt mail but why in the heck can’t they mail another letter informing you that you didn’t pay a ticket and a warrant will be issued for you arrest? If the original wasn’t received because of a delivery failure then chances are good a second one would be received, unless the mailperson is just completely incompetent. The scary thing is that anyone could have a warrant out for their arrest and have absolutely no knowledge of it.
This actually happened to me once when I payed my car insurance late and they notified the state that I had been cancelled but did not bother to notify them that I had been reinstated. I did not receive anything from the state about it. So a couple months later I try to renew my automobile registration and learn that I had a warrant out on my car/me. I also had to get the insurance thing straightened out before I could renew my auto tag. I could not do it there, so I had to drive home now knowing I had a warrant and call the state and let them know I had insurance.
The thing is I had one other incident of cancelling my insurance, I cancelled one company and switched to another. The cancelled company notified the state and the state sent me a letter asking for proof of insurance and warning me of a possible warrant if I did not provide proof. No biggie, I had a couple weeks leeway and I sent in proof of my new insurance and received a letter that it had been received. For the incident above I never received a letter from the state. Did they even mail one? Did it get lost in the mail? Why couldn’t they send me another letter informing me of my impending arrest when they never received the proof of insurance?
Wow, that’s pretty harsh, automatically issuing a warrant? I don’t doubt that it would help with the uninsured problem, but what if you just decided you didn’t want to drive anymore. Or you sold the car. Or moved out of state. It’d suck to get picked up on a warrant in Illinois because of a five year old outstanding warrant in Florida.
In Florida you are required to have insurance to drive. So if I got rid of my car I would have had to provide proof of title transfer, if not I would have to surrender my tag. If I moved out of state I suppose I would have to provide some proof of that as well.
Okay, so you loan your truck to a buddy so he can move some furniture. He runs a red light and a ticket is sent to your house. When your wife gets the mail, she tosses it for whatever reason (she thinks its junk mail, it was stuck to the back of a piece of junk mail, etc.)
So, two years later you get pulled over for having a headlight out, and you get cuffed and taken to jail for:
- An infraction you didn’t commit, and which the state has no evidence that you committed
- A warrant that you never received, and which the state has no evidence that you received.
State law be damned, there has to be some constitutional violations here…
Go to traffic court and you’ll learn the meaning of “Lowest Common Denominator.” The default assumption is that you’re lying (and technology never hiccups).
OK, that aside, I’m concerned about the law. Years ago (1985?) when the seatbelt law came along, the gist was that law enforcement wouldn’t pull you aside for “just that,” but if you were speeding and they found that your seatbelt wasn’t fastened, they could cite you.
Flash forward to Dec 2007. I’m in hometown Illinois and the police have set up a road bock, ostensibly to see who has the seatbelt fastened. Um, see above paragraph. The real agenda, I think: find out who has insurance.
What is law depends on who is willing to fight it. Where are groups like the ACLU on this? The police had no probable cause to stop me, and I wasn’t violating any other laws. But I think that’s the way American culture is going…we submit to airport searches that we would have found criminal pre-9/11, for instance.
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So, two years later you get pulled over for having a headlight out, and you get cuffed and taken to jailQUOTE]
It’s called a “bench warrant.” The police don’t come looking for you, but if they stop you for a traffic violation, it will come up on their system and you could be hauled in.
Tidbit: I work with a guy who is a lawyer. He says that when you pay a traffic ticket—say, for speeding—you should carry the documentation in your car. Flunkies down there don’t always get it right. If they don’t enter your payment and cancel out the transgression, a bench warrant can show up as a result. By reaching into the glove you can show that yes, you paid it and you may be able to avoid becoming someone’s beeyotch for the night in the slammer.
Again, in general, most states have established that camera-caught violations are civil infractions, not criminal violations. Not sure if that’s the case in New Jersey or not, but part of why this is done is to avoid the constitutional issues with criminal cases and things like proof beyond a reasonable doubt, procedure, etc.
So what is here to stop the slippery slope? Make everything a civil infraction with the punishment a civil commitment to a mental hospital? Kill someone, well, we aren’t charging you with murder, we are saying you are a danger to others and need to be locked up. So, too bad for you, no need for constitutional protections, just off to the looney bin you go.
My basic point: The government is not a person. They should not be involved in a civil action. Why have a criminal law at all if the government can get around it by claiming to be a civil party?