First off, let me say that in no way do I encourage actually getting parking or traffic tickets or purposely avoiding paying them when you’re clearly wrong. If you’re a grown-up, and you know you did something wrong, I’m sure you’ll do the right thing and pay up.
That being said, there are ways to save money on parking or traffic tickets. One way is to successfully contest a ticket, as I shared in a prior post. When you were not at fault and didn’t deserve the ticket, it’s worth contesting it. Just do it the right way, and you might get a postiive result as I did.
Another way to save money on a traffic ticket, depending on where you live, might be to pay it late. I’m not sure what I think of this, but apparently in California, per this article in Moneyland, some people with unpaid tickets can save 50% of what they owe. Now, there are a number of stipulations and restrictions that are noted, but for those that qualify, it appears to be an opportunity to save on money owed.
It would seem that the state would get some extra money and reduce the amount of unpaid tickets that are out there. For an entity such as a state, one can imagine that it would be a good thing to bring in that additional revenue that would have otherwise been collected. For the ticketed individual, he or she could get a nice reduction in the amount of money that was owed for the past transgression. Win-win, right?
Well, maybe. Or, maybe not?
I guess this could go either way. The other side of the coin is that people who diligently pay for a ticket right away (which I would do if I legitmately owed it and didn’t contest it) might end up paying far more money than a person who was delinquent and waited a long time to pay. In other words, there is almost and indirect reward of sorts to those who didn’t pay when they were supposed to. Instead of paying more or getting interest accrued, they would pay less over time!
That brings me to the following questions:
1) If you thought that there was a good chance that a ticket you that you justifiably received would ultimately fall under some kind of discount/amnesty type of program such as the one described, would you intentionally wait to pay your ticket?
2) What do you think of this program of offering discounts to those with outstanding tickets, who meet a set of parameters?
I would still pay on time. I’m just not comfortable with missing due dates; even when there is an incentive to do so.
If you can pay and don’t pay to get a discount later on, you’re a criminal to me.
This kind of seems like not paying your taxes and settling at a much later date for a lesser amount.. I think it would take too much worry and what if you get pulled over againg and have an outstanding ticket? I can see myself getting hauled off to jail over a ticket. That’s just my luck! I’d just pay the thing and be done with it. Interesting idea though.