Road Law – December 2025/January 2026
A pending legal matter isn’t something you can afford to put off. Whether civil or criminal in nature, there are many unforeseen consequences lurking in the dark if you don’t address things in a timely manner.
Here are some recent questions we’ve received and our answers. As always, we hope this information is helpful to you.
Q: I received a citation and forgot all about it. The date I was supposed to appear or respond was over six months ago. Can you help me?
A: Maybe. When you receive a ticket, there is usually a date somewhere on the ticket indicating when you need to either appear or contact the court.
From a procedure standpoint, the failure to appear or comply with your court date is handled very differently in different jurisdictions. If you are in a decent jurisdiction, the court clerk will send a notice to the address on your citation, warning of the consequences of not paying or appearing in court on a newly scheduled date and time. This is positive from the aspect that the case can probably be reset and put on the court’s calendar without too much fuss. However, if you are in a not-so-nice jurisdiction, the court might issue a bench warrant for failure to appear, send a suspension request to the DMV or possibly even issue a default judgment against you.
Further, the court could issue a bench warrant. In many jurisdictions, this will require that you come back to the court personally, turn yourself in to be processed by law enforcement, contact a bail bondsman or post bond and then request that the warrant be recalled in hopes the judge will agree to reset your case.
Because your response date was over six months ago, there may not be a lot that can be done to help on the underlying citation – and the only help we may be able to provide is to try to clean up the collateral damage that occurred from your failure to respond, pay or appear on your citation on your court date.
Q: I received a summons in the mail for a civil lawsuit against me from a traffic accident. Since I am an employee of the company I was driving for, can I just ignore this notice?
A: No! While there is not enough room in this article to discuss the intricacies of lawsuits regarding employers and employees along with the contractual obligations of insurance carriers, you never want to ignore a summons. Once a lawsuit is filed, there are very specific deadlines that must be met in order to prevent bad things from happening.
For example, let’s say you received a summons and ignored it or didn’t contact your employer or insurance company about it, and the statutory date to respond has passed.
As long as the party bringing the lawsuit has valid proof of service – meaning that you received notice of the lawsuit and that you have failed to respond – that party can ask the court for a default judgment against you. Depending on the circumstances, the default judgment can sometimes be set aside or nullified, but this isn’t the place you want to find yourself when facing liability. LL
We invite you to send any questions or comments regarding transportation law to: Road Law, 3441 W. Memorial Road, Suite 4, Oklahoma City, OK 73134; to contact us through our website at www.RoadLaw.net; or to call us at 405-242-2030. We look forward to hearing from you.