Improving Traffic Ticket Outcomes

Costly fines and fees from traffic citations disproportionately burden low income people with debt they cannot afford. To reduce the burden, California created MyCitations, an online ability-to-pay system. Between July 2002 and June 2023, in Tulare County, drivers saved 2.2 million dollars due to MyCitations. This project, led by ideas42, redesigned notices to improve awareness of the system and increase timely responses to citations in the county. As a result of the redesign, timely responses increased by 3.7 percentage points, fewer people incurred a civil assessment penalty, and the new notices generated 4,219 new applications.