Just to catch you all up on my little experiment.
It's been 1 1/2yrs since the two tickets. A guy came to my door in San Jose last summer to serve me for one of them. The $181 fine has grown to $257.50, but since one of them was apparently forgotten, I'm still ahead by $100. Two weeks ago I got my FINAL NOTICE! (It has it just like that - all in caps). If I don't pay by today, Sep 15, they are going to turn it over to a collection agency with an additional 19% penalty. Further down the notice is this gem:
"A WARRANT FOR YOUR ARREST MAY HAVE ALREADY BEEN ISSUED"
but down in the non-cap print below it says this:
"except in civil photo enforcement cases."
So it looks like there was no warrant issued, which was my only real concern. It's not like the collection agency is going to have any better luck collecting from me than the city of Phoenix did.