Think you can get away with not paying a ticket in New York? Think again. That was the lesson learned by a New York woman who spent a whopping 14 hours in jail for unpaid ticket from 2002. Many states keep track of their unpaid (and even paid) traffic tickets for a decade or more. Computer technology now makes it possible to store this information practically forever (or until the end time whichever comes first) so don’t think they will simply forget about it.

Also, automated computer programs regularly scan back through unpaid traffic tickets and alert police when a driver’s license is checked. So if you do have an outstanding traffic citation, and get stopped by police, they will know about it within minutes, maybe even seconds.

Drivers: Let this be a lesson to you. If you get a traffic ticket from NYC cops, pay it or fight it—don’t forget about it. Because a 27-year-old NJ resident says she was locked up for 14 hours over a traffic summons she got in 2002.

NBC New York spoke to Krystle Garcia who says that she’s been working in and driving into NYC for the past six years without a hitch: “Then, last Thursday, she was arrested at a checkpoint on the Upper East Side for an outstanding summons from 2002. ‘It was horrifying,’ said Garcia, of Elmwood Park. ‘I sat in a holding cell for 14 hours with people who had gun charges, who were fighting each other.'”

At the time of the summons, Garcia was only 17 and didn’t have an insurance card with her, and since then she’s been able to get her license renewed just fine. She has ended up paying the $155 but will never forget the horror of the holding cell, “I feel completely violated. There’s got to be something they can do besides torture people.”

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