I got a parking ticket in Bloomington, Indiana, in 2008. I did the online appeals process but never heard anything about it again. I’m not sure if the process was the same then as it is now: they say they’ll contact you by email or letter about the decision.
But, in any case, they presumably had my license number, and I haven’t moved out of the state or anything since then? Would I have gotten some sort of notice in the mail by now? Or has this ticket potentially bloomed to $10,000.00 or so by now? Should I call them on the phone and ask, or should I just leave well enough alone?
It could have been lost/destroyed/trashed/delivered to a neighbor by the USPS. If you don’t have that car/plate anymore, they can’t even boot you, which I’ve never heard of happening for just one unpaid ticket. There’s also the possibility that they don’t even know about this old ticket, due to computer system upgrades &/or purging of old data. Since a parking ticket goes against the vehicle & not the driver, nothing should happen to you if you were pulled over for any other reason either. Some places will prevent license renewal for the principal owner of the vehicle, but again, I’ve never heard of this happening for just one ticket.
Personally, I wouldn’t blink over one unpaid ticket from nine years ago.
I was pulled over in January because my trailer’s plate had a 2014 sticker. I explained that in 2014 I paid for four years worth of registration, but never recieved stickers. The cop punched the plate number in on his computer and found what I said was indeed correct.
While he was doing that, he punched in my driver’s license and it came back “Suspended”. I told him that had to be bullshit, and given the trailer plate results he searched further on my license.
Turns out after a bunch of back-and-forth, he discovered that when I pled guilty and paid the fine for a minor speeding ticket 26 months prior, the clerk accidentally processed the paperwork as a two week suspension. That two week suspension started immediately, and would have ended two weeks after they recieved my license in the mail (which the clerk would have done if I really had been suspended).
The cop figured out it was a mistake because I had zero points on my license, which did not match with my having had a speeding ticket sufficient for a suspended license.
But it would cost me more $$ to hire an attorney and dispute/reverse the suspension. I sent my license to Harrisburg, applied for and got it back two weeks later, for $80. I drove very carefully during that two weeks.
Strange that the appeal requirements doesn’t include payment of the scheduled bail …
Definitely look into this and get it fixed … Is there terminal access to the public records computer at your local court house? … you might have to daytrip up to Bloomington for information about parking tickets … it’s a loose end that 20 years from now puts a boot on your rig …
Way back when, when I was living in Chicagoland, my SO and I were in the process of buying our first condo. We were days away from closing, when the bank called and told us they found a claim from a collection agency against, against my SO, and it needed to be cleaned up before we could close.
It turns out it was for a parking ticket. Neither of us remembered getting a ticket in that suburb, or receiving any notifications. The description on the ticket didn’t really sound like our car, but it was vague. By the time we found out about it, it was several years old, the city had added fees, and the collection agency had also added fees. I think the ticket had about tripled due to the fees and fines. Because we were so close to the condo closing, we paid the darn thing, just to make it go away.
Our best bet? The city never bothered sending out a notice, the fine was to small. They happily sold it to a collection agency, for a guaranteed cents on the dollar rate. The agency just sat on it, since that didn’t cost them anything, knowing that a certain % of the tickets + fines and fees would be paid without a fight, by people in exactly our situation.
So no, I wouldn’t bet on a notification ever being sent out, and I also wouldn’t bet on it disappearing into the ether.