Bob Arruda thought the story of his youthful speeding ticket was long over.

After all, it happened back in 1992, when grunge ruled the airwaves and he was just a guy driving home from an Allman Brothers concert. He’d been pulled over in North Attleboro, Massachusetts.

Arruda didn’t think he was speeding, hired a lawyer, fought the ticket, and won. That was the end of it…or so he believed.

Fast forward more than 30 years, and Arruda, now living a quiet life in Exeter, Rhode Island, walked into the DMV to renew his driver’s license

Instead of the usual minor hassle, though, he walked out with a headache.

His license had been suspended. The reason: that same ticket from the early 90s had somehow come back from the dead. If you’re thinking this sounds like a scam, you’re not alone.

Arruda said plenty of people he’s spoken to thought so, too. And yet, this bizarre scenario is playing out for more and more drivers across New England. It often blindsides people who haven’t had so much as a parking ticket in decades.

Arruda’s situation started unraveling when he spent hours on the phone with the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) trying to figure out why his license was suddenly flagged

The answer was maddening. The suspension traced back to that long-ago traffic stop he’d already beaten in court. The RMV told him that if he wanted to keep his license and continue driving to work, he’d need to pay $240 to resolve the issue.

Arruda described the situation as feeling like a shakedown, even using the word “extortion.”

So how does a dismissed speeding ticket from the H.W. Bush-era suddenly come back to haunt someone in 2025? The short version is that technology caught up with the bureaucracy.

A spokesperson for the RMV explained that some states, including Rhode Island and New York, have recently joined a system that lets states electronically share driver history through a national exchange.

When a new state signs on, they get access to old out-of-state convictions. And they’re legally required to apply them to driver records, even if the offense happened decades ago.

That’s led to a wave of ancient tickets and suspensions resurfacing for people who thought those chapters of their lives were long closed.

Before the mid-1990s, many traffic fines in Massachusetts weren’t processed by the RMV at all 

They were handled at the district court level. That separation meant that records of old tickets could linger in courthouse archives without ever syncing up to driver histories.

Attorney Brian Simoneau, who specializes in RMV-related cases, said he regularly fields panicked calls from drivers learning they’re suspended over citations from the 1980s and 1990s. 

Sometimes, the suspensions come from states they haven’t set foot in since college.

The attorney believes Massachusetts should forgive these fossilized speeding tickets

They create financial and logistical headaches for drivers. They also force public employees to dig through decades-old paper records just to hold hearings on long-forgotten infractions. 

There’s also no statute of limitations on these tickets, and no amnesty process. Simoneau described it as strange and badly in need of reform.

In Arruda’s case, the only way to clear his name was to prove the original ticket had been dismissed. That meant someone needed to locate the original court record from 1992.

Staff at the Attleboro District Court stepped up, combing through their archives until they found the docket showing a large “NR” (“not responsible”) next to his name

Armed with that evidence, Arruda was able to get the suspension lifted and even received a $240 refund from the RMV.