How do I take care of this speeding ticket?

Locally at least I know the courts here have some sort of access to other area’s records. From experience I can only say my local court knew about a ticket 200 miles away that was still open.

I would imagine this is standard across the country, it seems to be pretty basic that they’d need to be able to look up your record and see if you have anything outstanding if they stopped you.

I would just call the local court, explain the situation, and see what they can tell you. You might have to go in person, but that would definitely get the ball rolling.

I hope the rest of your holiday is more enjoyable than this :P

Here is the Cleveland Number for the Ohio State Highway Patrol Post (216) 587–4305. I would call them.

And here is the phone number for the Municipal Court – (216) 291–4901.

Just call and make the inquiry to either or both places, that you got a ticket around (whatever the date was), then lost the ticket, and want to take care of it somehow.

There will generally be the fine for the original ticket plus the cost for their local warrant for failure to appear plus court costs. You might get lucky and they waive the warrant charges, depends on the State and the court folks.

Good for you for be a responsible traffic violator. the above information is correct. i am amazed that you have not been contacted, by a bill collector, and a lien not placed on some asset of yours. this is usually the protocol, when a traffice citation is not paid. the courr, if you do not pay or show for court, considers this a guilty plea and turns your citation over to a collection agency.

You have been lucky, so far. when you call one of the above numbers, you may be shocked at what you are told. court cost and fees will added to your fine and you may discover a lien has already been in place, against you.

please post an update if you wish, as to how things turn out.

the update lady
JCA

There should be a website for tickets outstanding based on a driver’s license. If there is, just enter your license and find out what is there. If not, there’s an idea for a new website for someone.

Here’s an article that might address some of your concerns.

@jca I forgot that I never updated you on this one. The ticket is still outstanding because neither I nor the State of Ohio can find it. Unless one of us finds it I can’t pay it. Is that crazy or what? On my Thanksgiving trip I was so nervous driving because I thought that there was a warrant out for my on this ticket. It’s the biggest travel day of the year and even if I was incredibly careful someone could still run into me and I would have to show my license to the police when they showed up and off I’d go in handcuffs. It was nerve-wracking.

The friday after Thanksgiving I started calling and trying to get information to try to pay the ticket but nobody had any record of it. The third state police office I called gave me the number of the state police outpost that was most likely to have the hard copy and that guy told me it could be like finding a needle in a haystack but he would ask the secretary to look for it and if they found it he would call back. He also told me to call Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles because they process the warrants. The police are supposed to notify the courts and then courts are supposed to notify Motor Vehicle if the ticket is not paid/outstanding. And Ohio Motor Vehicle has no record of the ticket and no warrant was ever issued for me.

I really do want to take care of it because these are the kinds of things that always come back to bite me on the ass if I think I’m done with it but on the other hand, I’m not going to tempt fate either. They don’t have a record of the ticket so I can’t really do anything until I find my copy.

I’m one of those paranoid people who thinks we’re being data mined down to the minutia everything about us is being kept in some big database so I was pretty shocked when nobody had any record of the ticket. I think I read somewhere that Ohio issues more traffic tickets than any other state; maybe they just count on people not losing the tickets and paying them without question.

I made another trip to my aunt’s over Christmas and New Years and it was not nearly as nerve-wracking. I still really don’t know what to do about this. The state police and Motor Vehicle people did tell me that if a warrant is issued for my arrest I would receive a letter notifying me of that so I guess, until I find my copy of the ticket or receive that letter I will just leave it be. I don’t know what else to do.

Final update for anyone who still cares or is still paying attention.

I found the ticket!!! I had some guests down for Easter weekend and was “cleaning up” which mostly involves moving things around in the spare room I throw everything into when guests are coming and need to clean up… moving things around so I can put more stuff in there and then putting more stuff in there and I came upon a basket of papers and other things a couple layers down that had something in it I had been looking for and so I went through it and found my speeding ticket. I wrote the court a check and popped in the mail today. Now I no longer have to be afraid of driving through Ohio. I know they lost the ticket too but I’m so bad about papers and things I was afraid that they were going to find it and I might miss the notices in the mail. Just glad to have it over and done with. I am no longer an outlaw.

@lillycoyote
Ah, the bliss of righteousness! Good for you!

@Sunny2 And the bliss and stress free life of not being an outlaw!