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But why the Pinellas error in tracking traffic infractions went undiscovered so long is unclear.
By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 14, 2002
Attorney Victor Pellegrino recalled a client arrested in Hillsborough for a misdemeanor DUI telling him he had a previous DUI conviction in Pinellas.
Yet, state records showed nothing. In the end, the man was convicted in Hillsborough County and sentenced as a first-time DUI offender, receiving less-severe sanctions than he should have.
"For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why the Pinellas information hadn't been reported to the state," said Pellegrino. He said he was bound by confidentiality from telling the court about his client's true record. "I've had other cases just like it."
The episode may have been related to an error by the Pinellas court clerk's office, which said last week that it failed to report the outcome of 70,000 traffic cases from 1996 to 1999 to state license officials.
Mistakes in state traffic records, in fact, may be an old problem, one that led state lawmakers to seek a solution beginning in 1996.
That's when lawmakers mandated the creation of a new computer system to help the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles and the state's 67 counties better track traffic infractions.
The system, operated by the Florida Association of Clerks, is scheduled to be operational in most or all counties by the end of the year.
"We've documented 10 to 25 percent of all citations have an error somewhere," said Beth Allman, a spokeswoman for the association. "You have a wealth of human hands touching a traffic ticket, from the police officer on the scene to the clerk's office, with a tremendous chance of human error."
The new system standardizes the tracking of traffic infractions, allowing agencies to better ferret out mistakes and track revenue from tickets.
As to the Pinellas mistake, it remains unclear how such a substantial error could have remained undiscovered for so long.
"A lot of people may have been impacted in a small way by this," said Don Pankonin, a manager in a software support group for the county's information technology office. "I hope that for 99.9 percent of them it was nonconsequential."
He said state officials visit Pinellas and other counties every few years to verify the accuracy of ticket information collected by counties.
Bob Sanchez, a spokesman for highway safety, said that information on highway safety computers is audited "to ensure that they're accurately and completely recorded."
Sanchez said the department pulls batches of tickets and matches them against other records to see whether the department has accurate information on its database.
Each year, highway safety processes as many as 4-million traffic citations and maintains a database of 14-million drivers holding a Florida license.
"We take very seriously our responsibility to maintain accurate and compete records on each and every driver. It is an essential component of our core mission of "making highways safe,' " Sanchez said.
Neither Sanchez nor Pinellas officials can say how many people the Pinellas error affected.
Clerk of Court Karleen DeBlaker's office has said the error was caused by a computer programming error. The error in an automated system led to numerous infractions being missed.
The infractions included everything from speeding to misdemeanor DUIs. In the same time frame, Pinellas managed to successfully send the dispositions of other cases to highway safety.
The problem undoubtedly affected numerous drivers, especially those who should have received driver's license suspensions or revocations from 1996 to 1999 who are only now learning that they are losing their right to drive.
Brian Tobin, 24, of Largo is one of those drivers.
After he failed to pay a speeding ticket, his license was suspended in 1998. Three times in 1998, he was stopped for driving on a suspended license. That should have led to an immediate five-year license revocation.
Tobin finally received notification in July of a revocation that he must begin serving this month. Tobin said he was forced to turn down a job working for a pest control company that would have required him to drive. "When I called to complain, the license people asked me, "Well, you did this, didn't you?' Well, I did do it. So I guess I'm stuck with it," he said.