Traffic Amnesty Law Will Reinstate Your License at Half the Price

If you got a traffic ticket and didn't pay it, you can clear your record next year at a discount.

A new law creates a one-year amnesty allowing you to pay half what you owe and call it even. It's an attempt to make it easier for people with suspended licenses to get them back so they can get a job. Indianapolis Representative Robin Shackleford (D) says 400,000 Hoosiers have suspended licenses. Many of them are driving anyway, with no license or insurance. She says the law will allow them to get jobs which require a license. 

The one-year amnesty won't begin till January, to give the state time to prepare a marketing effort. And it doesn't mean you can delay paying a fine you just got—it applies only to fines issued before 2019.

The county prosecutor can object, but he'd have to show you're not wanted for something else, and don't owe child support or restitution for a crime.

The amnesty applies only to traffic tickets, not drunken driving or other felonies and misdemeanors. Fiscal analysts estimate it'll bring the state an extra $40 million in uncollected fines.

Governor Holcomb signed the bill into law last week.