What Happens When You Don’t Show Up? (FTA)

Hey, what’s up? I’m attorney Derek Gray of McMinn, Logan & Gray. We are a criminal law firm in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and this is my FAQ series.

So today’s question is: What are the consequences of a failure to appear (or FTAs)  in Winston Salem, North Carolina?

So a failure to appear is initiated after someone misses their court date. A lot of times, these are only involving traffic tickets because if you fail to appear on a criminal violation, more than likely, the judge is going to issue an order for your arrest, which we call OFA for short. But in failures to appear, they’ll go into effect 20 days after their issue, and from there, the DMV will be notified, which adds a $200 late fee to your court costs. And approximately two months after picking up the failure to appear, the DMV will suspend your driver’s license. So the impact of a failure to appear is your license will be suspended.

I will say this, if you get a failure to appear and you pick up another traffic violation in the process, be very careful how you handle that situation because that can cause an additional suspension of your driver’s license. If you do pick up a failure to appear, reach out to an attorney. This is someone that can likely strike the failure to appear, save you $200 in court costs and make sure you get your license reinstated. I hope that answers your question.