It might be worth contacting an attorney about this. An attorney could get it down to a misdemeanor avoiding the possibility of a jail sentence and reducing the fine.

I agree with @marinelife if it were me, I would contact a traffic attorney, they can usually give you some pretty good advice, even over the phone.

Good suggestions above. I don’t believe any judge would accept as a legitimate excuse your son not knowing his license had been suspended, even if he wasn’t properly notified by mail. So talking with a traffic attorney is definiely the best thing to do.

What kind of surcharge affects one’s driver license? Very curious. Not knowing will not make any difference (most likely). I’m an attorney so, of course, I think you should contact one in your own area.

He was probably warned when he was notified of the surcharge (whatever that is). It probably said that failure to pay would result in suspension of license.

Like others have said, an attorney specializing in traffic court can usually negotiate away the offense—probably in this case with him agreeing to pay all fees in full right away. That’s just a guess on my part based on an article I read about this once.