Seattle Offers Reduction On Overdue Tickets Outstanding Traffic And Parking Fines Reduced For Two Weeks

Drivers who have neglected to pay their timeworn parking and traffic tickets have a chance to make amends.

In hopes of easing a backlog of cases, Seattle Municipal Court has declared a limited amnesty that could reduce the cost of overdue tickets by 27 percent to 40 percent.

For two weeks beginning Monday, the court will waive collection fees and interest on parking and traffic tickets issued before Jan. 1, 1994.

The court will still collect the fine, penalty and a $15 administrative fee for each ticket.

Participants are required to appear in person at the payment windows on the first floor of the Public Safety Building in downtown Seattle.

The amnesty ends June 27.

A basic parking ticket is $20 to $25. If unpaid after 15 days, the court adds $25. After 45 days, the court adds $15 and sends the offender a letter. If the ticket is unpaid 30 days after that, a collection agency adds another fee, and the ticket begins to accrue 12 percent annual interest.

Delinquent tickets can also prompt the city to put a hold on car tags and driver’s licenses.

“For these older debts, this is one last opportunity to get it cleared up,” said court administrator Kenneth Klimusko.

The city issued about 600,000 traffic and parking tickets in 1996 and about a quarter of those went unpaid. Overall, the city is owed about $60 million in delinquent tickets since 1987, and has files on about 738,355 of them in its collection agency.

“Tickets are not going to go away,” Klimusko said.

Unless you have a lot of patience. Tickets are purged after 10 years.