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Feb 10, 2009 4:31 pm US/Central
No Registration Renewal If You Owe Dallas County
Arezow Doost
DALLAS (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
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TX Dept. of Transportation
If you owe Dallas County money, you can forget about renewing your vehicle registration. Starting February 11, 2009 the Scofflaw Registration Block Program goes into effect.
Currently, Dallas County is owed more than $200 million by drivers with unpaid traffic tickets. Now, drivers with unpaid fines will not be allowed to renew vehicle registrations.
In response to the new 'block', more drivers than normal started showing up at the Dallas County Tax Office; paying their outstanding traffic tickets. Chakarri Luckett was among the crowd. She got in line to pay an outstanding speeding ticket. "I don't want to go to jail, riding around with out of date stickers on my car, because they are already looking for me," said Luckett.
Vehicle registration may not be the only thing at stake if you have outstanding fines; if you owe Dallas County money you won't be able to renew your driver's license either.
Dallas County Commissioner Maurine Dickey said it's time for violators to pay up. "The good person that is paying their fines is being penalized. The guy that gets away with it gets no penalty," she explained.
According to Dallas County Commissioners, 2009 is a tough budget year and they're forced to start collecting what's owed in fines and fees.
In the past commissioners used warning letters and warrant sweeps to try and collect on the more than 750,000 citations, but neither have worked.
"When we looked at the collections, a few months ago, we discovered that there were people that had 30 citations and had never been picked up and they just didn't pay, so nothing was being done about it," said Dickey.
The county created a web site called Dallas County Wanted. Drivers can log on and check to see if their name is on the 'wanted' list.
Click here to find out what you need to do if you owe the county money.
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