For instance, as I discovered recently going through this process myself - here in UK when applying for British citizenship you have to disclose any court orders against you. Now here's a thing - if you were given a ticket for speeding, accepted it and paid it then that's it, no harm done. If it's less than 3 tickets in the last 5 years then you don't even need to list it on the application form.
However, if you went to court to contest it and lost, then you now have a court order against you - and that's an automatic 3 year ban on British citizenship applications, and even after that you always have to list it as a thing that happened and it can be used to argue you are of "bad character" and be used to deny you the citizenship.
So yes, failing to get rid of a traffic ticket(in the court of law) can absolutely ruin your life.
How is this known upfront? I've lived for over a decade in this country without knowing this, until I actually applied for my citizenship last year. I'm just lucky I never went to court to contest a speeding ticket(because I never got any) or I could have screwed myself over without even knowing.
Also define "small group" - nearly 200k people apply for British citizenship annually, and I bet most of them have no idea contesting a traffic ticket can cost them a chance at becoming citizens.
For instance, as I discovered recently going through this process myself - here in UK when applying for British citizenship you have to disclose any court orders against you. Now here's a thing - if you were given a ticket for speeding, accepted it and paid it then that's it, no harm done. If it's less than 3 tickets in the last 5 years then you don't even need to list it on the application form.
However, if you went to court to contest it and lost, then you now have a court order against you - and that's an automatic 3 year ban on British citizenship applications, and even after that you always have to list it as a thing that happened and it can be used to argue you are of "bad character" and be used to deny you the citizenship.
So yes, failing to get rid of a traffic ticket(in the court of law) can absolutely ruin your life.