If you’ve got an old, unpaid traffic ticket, the state has a deal for you.

Starting Jan. 1 and until June 30, the state is launching an amnesty program that will allow you to pay only 50 percent of a ticket that was supposed to have been paid by Jan. 1, 2009.

Only traffic tickets are covered. Parking tickets, DUI and reckless driving cases are ineligible.

But the savings for drivers could be huge. With all of the fees and assessments tacked on to tickets, plus the late fee, a driver could save hundreds of dollars.

The idea behind the half-off deal is to generate revenue for the financially pinched state court system. And with more than 6 million tickets possibly eligible for a discount, that could net the courts millions.

For Sonoma County, Court Executive Officer Jose Guillen said 15,603 cases with fines totaling $9 million are eligible for the deal. If all the tickets were paid, the local courts would collect about $4.5 million, although the money would be divided up with the state and local and regional agencies, he said.

“It’s a wild guess as to how much we will be collecting,” Guillen said.

“This is a win-win,” Ronald G. Overholt, interim administrative director of the state courts system, said in a statement. “People have an opportunity to clear their traffic tickets at a reduced cost, and the courts and the counties will get an injection of much-needed funds to help maintain critical services for the public.”

To qualify, you also must have failed to appear in court or failed to pay in full; you don’t owe restitution to a victim on any case within the county where the ticket was issued; and you don’t have an outstanding misdemeanor or felony warrant in that county.

The 50 percent deal includes every county in the state, but state officials are giving each county’s court officials the option to limit the type of tickets covered. So if you were ticketed in a county other than Sonoma, you’ll need to contact the court system in that county.

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