Wisconsin loses money each year because it has not joined an inter-state agreement that already includes 48 other states. As a result, members of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and clerks of the Wisconsin Circuit Court are pushing state legislators to join the agreement in order to help enforce traffic penalties.

The state currently does not have a way to ensure out-of-state drivers actually pay traffic tickets. The agreement—called the Driver License Agreement—aims to correct that.

The Driver License Agreement is actually a revision of two earlier inter-state driving compacts—the Driver License Compact and the Non-Resident Violator Compact—according to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administration Web site. Wisconsin and Michigan are the only states that are not members of one or both of these agreements, the site said.

"The new DLA will be a more efficient and effective agreement for the jurisdictions to share and transmit driver and conviction information," the site said.

Erin Egan, chief of the citations and withdrawals section of the Bureau of Drivers Services at the WisDOT, said the bill has two provisions. The first makes driving records from participating states available to law enforcement and court systems in other states. This would aid in enforcing fines for out-of-state drivers who are ticketed in Wisconsin. The second provision requires state jurisdictions to follow enhanced identity verification procedures for security.

Dennis Hughes, chief of safety programs in the Bureau of Transportation Safety and Division of State Patrol at WisDOT, said in an e-mail that Wisconsin's location between Chicago and the Twin Cities, and its strong tourism industry bring in a high volume of non-resident drivers.

Hughes said in 2005, 206,415 drivers were involved in police-reported traffic crashes in Wisconsin. Nearly 12,000 of those crashes—around 6 percent—involved out-of-state license holders.

"When a non-resident is convicted of a traffic offense in Wisconsin, the Division of Motor Vehicles notifies the driver's home state of the offense so that state can take appropriate action," Hughes said. "A Wisconsin driver record is created for major offenses and license withdrawals are entered the same as for a Wisconsin driver."

Although other states are informed of Wisconsin traffic offenses, they are not obligated to collect fines, Egan said. She said 25 percent of all citation fines issued each year—about $200,000—go unpaid. Part of that number is because of non-resident drivers who don't pay their tickets, she said.

If a driver defaults on payment of a fine, Wisconsin notifies DOT that they are suspending that driver's license. By Wisconsin law, that license can be suspended for up to two years, Egan said. The suspension is lifted and the driver can legally drive again, she said.

Joining the agreement would be costly, Egan said. She said implementing the bill and transferring driver data and records into electronic files would incur a one-time cost of $800,000. If the agreement helps track down traffic violators, but the additional revenue could pay for that cost later, she said.