Ticket: Gift that keeps on giving

Ah, summer in Boston. Sure, the humidity's disgusting. But when else can you luck out with parking? The students have gone home, people are on vacation, and snow parking bans are but a refreshingly cool dream.

Screech! Now that Labor Day is here, parking's a pain once more. And so, we pick up where we left off last spring, with Part 3 of our parking ticket survival guide.

How long does an outstanding parking ticket stay on record?

Employing a nice, thick Boston accent, Watertown traffic chief Sergeant Joseph Deignan had the winning answer.

"FAH-EV-AH!" he said.

Well, almost forever. I would offer that parking tickets issued before the advent of computer databases are probably ancient history. But we're talking about tickets issued more than 20 years ago. "The earliest unpaid ticket in our computer system right now is 1990," affirmed Sergeant Larry Fitzgerald of Brookline's traffic department.

Still, unlike a criminal offense, there is no statute of limitations on a parking ticket, police said. Presidential candidate Barack Obama learned this lesson in March when he anted up on 19 Cambridge and Somerville tickets he accrued back when he was a student at Harvard Law School.

Reader Debra Vincuilla of Watertown said she got notices in the mail last winter instructing her to pay fines on a pair of parking tickets from 1997 and 1993. After much hassle she got the tickets dismissed -- Vincuilla said she had paid them the first time around -- but if it can happen to her, it can happen to you.

Deignan said that people often pay their parking tickets after a late fee has been added. They think the paperwork is over, but it isn't.

"The check that was sent in applies toward the ticket, but there's still the late fee, and the late fee will still accrue," he said.

Q. What happens when you fail to pay a parking ticket?

A. I'm sure some readers have the drill memorized, but I'll review the procedure for everyone's enlightenment.

You have 21 days to either pay the ticket or register your appeal. Occasionally, you get some leeway. I paid a Cambridge parking ticket this summer 25 days after it was issued, and all was well. But parking officials from all over stress that 21 days is the legal limit. Dating your check prior to the 21st day or mailing your payment on the 21st day isn't sufficient, they said. If the issuing municipality doesn't record your payment by the 21st day, it can automatically assess a late fee.

"Once the payment is mailed it goes into a processing unit. They're getting hundreds and hundreds of tickets. Just because it [arrived] there that day doesn't mean it will be processed," said James Mansfield, spokesman for the Boston Transportation Department. "People always ask me, 'Do you have a payment plan for parking tickets?' I say, 'Yes we do. Twenty-one days within it being issued.' "

The issuing municipality can be just as tough with the appeals process. Unless the municipality offers some form of leniency, you lose all rights to appeal the ticket if your appeal isn't on record by the 21st day.

Most municipalities charge no more than two late fees, ranging from $5 to 25, no matter how late you pay the ticket. If you fail to pay the ticket within about 100 days, a copy gets sent to the Registry of Motor Vehicles and your driver's license or car registration is marked "nonrenewable." (The same black mark applies if you fail to pay your vehicle excise tax.)

In the short run, this black mark doesn't hurt you. You can ignore 100 parking tickets without any repercussions on your current car registration and license, said Ann Dufresne, senior communications adviser for the RMV. But when your registration or license expires, your choices are to pay up, stop driving, or move out of state.

If you pay up, you'll owe the original amount of the parking tickets, plus late fees, plus $20 per ticket to clear the mark against you at the Registry, Dufresne said.

Q. What happens if I don't pay tickets from a college or university?

A. No doubt you love your alma mater. But paying those outstanding parking tickets? It's not like you're ever back on campus. And your college car is long gone.

But they can come back to haunt you.

"Most schools and universities have police departments that are considered 'real', i.e., they have been through the same training as a municipal police officer and the department is authorized to exercise police powers," Dufresne said in an e-mail. "Thus, we will take 'marks' from any authorized police department."

Assume that most of the major Boston-area colleges and universities will report your unpaid parking tickets.

Tickets issued by the Department of Conservation and Recreation at beaches and parklands and by Massport at Logan Airport and Massport-owned metered spots in places like the Seaport District are also reported.

"Boston University police are also allowed to write out City of Boston tickets on the public streets surrounding the university," said Tracey Ganiatsos of the Boston Transportation Department. "So if you get a parking ticket for parking in front of a hydrant on Commonwealth Avenue, it could be it's issued by a Boston University police officer."

What drives you crazy about local drivers? Is there a traffic rule you've always wondered about, or a pet peeve that never fails to annoy you? Send us a message about it at ciweek@globe.com. We'll check it out.