Q: DMV informed me I can't renew my license because of unpaid traffic tickets. How can I find out where those are from
The Secretary of State's office wouldn't inform me where in Illinois the tickets were issued, just that I had to get those taken care of before I could renew. I'm not sure where the tickets originated. Short of calling all the county circuit clerks, is there a way to find out those details?
A:
Hello Asker,
Regrettably, the Secretary of State has limited information on this matter. They don't keep track of the dollar amounts. Rather, they simply receive reports from the various circuit clerks (102 or so in Illinois) of cases where non-payment was an issue and don't release the hold until the circuit clerk in question provides a failure to pay receipt as evidence of payment.
The best way to do so is to call the Secretary of State (and this is key) and be polite. They are state employees and can be very helpful but can be equally unwilling to be uninterested if you are rude (because they don't have to be super friendly if you aren't). So, when speaking, mind your manners and know that they are very willing to help but being unpleasant can quickly discourage this desire (I speak from experience having dealt with them for many hundreds of times and they have been very committed to going beyond what can be expected).
Call 800-252-8980 during business hours (M-F, 8am-4pm) and press the following sequence of numbers to navigate the call tree: 1, 7, 6, 3. Between each button, wait for the prompt for the next menu to start. If there isn't a dial tone after pressing 7, hang up and try again (sometimes the call tree malfunctions). This will connect you to traffic violations. When you reach them, you will need to ask the following questions after providing your license number:
-How many failures to pay do I have?
-What are the county and ticket numbers of the failures to pay on my record?
-Do I have any reinstatement fees?
This should be all you need. Thank them and call each respective county to identify how much you owe. After paying these fines, request a failure to pay receipt from the clerk and deliver it to the secretary of state. As an Urbana resident, you may be able to do this at a local DMV. If they tell you it can't be processed there, you should expect to send it to Springfield or walk it in personally (faster as it usually allows for much faster processing).
Hope that helps and let me know if you have any questions!
Sincerely,
Jason A. Wilkins
Traffic Attorney
(630) 445-2293
A: Ask the sos office. They should have a list of your convictions on your driver's abstract.
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