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Failure to Appear Overview

courtroomIf you are charged with a motor vehicle offense (be it a felony, misdemeanor or infraction) and you fail on your court date or you do not pay a citation within 20 days after handling the ticket in the court then the clerk of court must report this to DMV. (The failure to appear also triggers imposition of a $200 additional court cost).

When it receives notice from the clerk DMV must mail or personally deliver to the person an order revoking his or her driver’s license, effective on the 60th day after the order is mailed or delivered. If you handle the ticket before the 60th day then the revocation never becomes effective and any entries on your driving record related to the revocation are deleted. To resolve the matter, you must do one of four things, depending upon the circumstances giving rise to the court’s report to DMV: (1) dispose of the charge in the trial division in which he or she failed to appear when the case was last called for trial or hearing; (2) demonstrate to the court that you are not the person charged with the offense; (3) pay the penalty, fine, or costs ordered by the court; or (4) demonstrate that your failure to pay the penalty, fine, or costs was not willful and that he or she is making a good faith effort to pay or that the penalty, fine or costs should be remitted (striking failure to appear).

Once you resolve the matter in court, the court so notifies DMV. (Sometimes the clerk does not notify DMV unless the client or attorney take affirmative steps to do so i.e. faxing copy of disposition to dmv or bring a disposition screen to a dmv hearing officer). If the revocation order becomes effective before the charge is resolved, your license remains revoked until you resolve the matter by completing the necessary act of the four listed above and pays a $50 license restoration fee.

If a clerk sends an order to DMV “through clerical mistake or other inadvertence,” (failure to appear sent in error) the clerk’s office that sent the report of noncompliance must withdraw the report and send notice to DMV, which corrects its records. When this occurs, your driver’s license is reinstated without paying the restoration fee. In contrast, if the failure to appear is stricken but no notice is sent to DMV withdrawing then you must pay the $50 restoration fee to regain your driver’s license. A related provision in G.S. 7A-304(a)(6) requires the court to waive the $200 fee for failing to appear if the person demonstrates that he or she failed to appear because of an error or omission of a judicial official, a prosecutor or a law enforcement officer. (Courts also have discretionary authority to waive such costs upon upon a written finding of just cause).

Although most of this information passing between the clerk and dmv is done electronically it is always better practice for a hard copy of the disposition to be hand delivered or faxed to dmv. This may involve additional work on behalf of the attorney and additional fees but without this failsafe procedure many updates fall through the cracks.

If you have a failure to appear caused by not coming to court or not paying a fine then call Douglas Portnoy at 919-875-8773 for competent legal assistance.

Chat or call 919-729-9000 now to speak to a dedicated traffic ticket attorney.