State to Allow Collection Agencies to Go After Traffic Violators

HONOLULU, HI – A new policy by state judges means thousands of people with unpaid traffic tickets will not have to worry about getting arrested. However, for the traffic deadbeats the alternative may be worse: bill collectors.

The threat of arrest for unpaid traffic fines has actually been considered a kind of joke in law enforcement. Warrants issued by traffic judges just piled up because government was not willing to spend money to go out and find such minor offenders.

Now, the courts have hired a collection agency to go after all those unpaid fines.

People paying fines Monday said if they did not pay, they are afraid of something other than the slim chance of arrest would not scare them.

“(A) collection agency, when they come they, like, grab your credit and mess you up for, like, seven years,” motorist James Ahina said.

The traffic court judges are counting on that.

Starting soon, people who skip court on most traffic offenses will face a default judgment. If that is ignored, instead of a sheriff’s deputy with an arrest warrant, a company called Municipal Services Bureau will be calling.

A new computer being installed at the courthouse is another reason judges have decided not to issue so many traffic warrants. The old warrants were a burden on the old system and with the new system, a judge will immediately be able to find a motorist guilty, set their fine and refer the case to the collection agency.

That is great news to sheriffs who have not had the manpower to serve traffic warrants for years. “(It’s) frustrating that we can’t do anything about it,” Warrants Division Commander Lt. Frank Delarosa said.

While sheriffs focused on finding serious offenders, up to 80,000 traffic warrants went unserved. Twenty-thousand finally had to be erased. The sheriffs are glad to hear judges will not keep sending them traffic warrants that still had to be maintained and monitored at taxpayer expense.

“We are really overburdened serving criminal warrants and we have no resources to address traffic warrants,” Delaroasa said. The judges are not giving up on traffic warrants entirely. They will still be issued in criminal traffic offenses such as DUI, reckless driving and racing.

The new system will take effect when the Judiciary’s new computer goes online, which could be anytime in the next few weeks.