They must really be getting desprite if its coming down to this.
Old tickets get a new airing in Colonie
Frustration looms among those who are on hook for old, allegedly unpaid fines
By TIM O’BRIEN, Staff writer
First published in print: Monday, June 1, 2009
COLONIE – James Zimmer doesn’t remember getting the speeding ticket in 1983. But rather than risk losing his license, he paid it last month in Colonie Town Court.
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The outcome was different for Mary Harding, who got a notice for an 11-year-old speeding ticket from the same court: She was able to find her old check register to show she paid the fine in 1999.
Zimmer and Harding are not the only ones warned by the state Department of Motor Vehicles that they could lose their licenses if they did not pay old tickets in Colonie. They shared their experiences after a story ran in the Times Union in which an Albany woman, Connie Van Houter, told how she was warned her license would be suspended over a ticket written in 1984. Van Houter mailed in a not guilty plea and is awaiting her day in court.
Zimmer said he was stunned when he got the news his license would be suspended in June unless he paid the 1983 ticket. While watching traffic court in session, the North Greenbush resident said he realized cases were being taken in alphabetical order.
“With the last name Zimmer, I didn’t want to be there all night,” he said.
So he gave up and paid the $75 fine, figuring he could not prove he paid it previously.
“Back then, everything was in cash so how can you prove you paid them?” he said.
Mary Harding’s ticket wasn’t quite so old. She had received it in 1998 but got a notice in December that the fine was never paid.
“I still had my check register,” the self-described pack rat said. She found the entry that the ticket had been paid in 1999, though her bank could not find a copy of the check. Her attorney, Jack Casey, managed to get it dismissed.
“I know they have a tough financial situation, but really,” Harding said.
Town Court Clerk Julie Gansle said the town gets an annual list of outstanding tickets from the state DMV, and workers compare the list with their files.
“Our tickets go back until at least 1980,” she said. “It became noticeable that the suspensions we had asked motor vehicles to do in 1983, 1984, never made the abstracts. It came to our attention that the suspension was not processed back then.”
The town has hundreds of back tickets, including dozens a year from the 1980s, she said.
State DMV officials have said they will send out notices if informed by a town court, though going back 20 years or more is unusual.
Eileen Dean, chief court clerk in Guilderland, said she never goes back that far. “We try to stay on top of our paperwork,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve gone back 25 years.”
There are no statutes of limitations on unpaid traffic tickets, but attorney David Gruenberg of Troy said it can be hard to prove if a driver takes the case to court. “You’re going to have trouble prosecuting it unless the police officer is still active,” he said.
At a traffic court trial, the officer must testify. He or she does not have to remember writing a ticket, Gruenberg said, and they are allowed to review it to confirm they wrote it. Without that testimony, he said, the ticket will be dismissed.
Staff writer Tim O’Brien can be reached at 454-5092 or by e-mail at tobrien@timesunion.com