BATON ROUGE- Officials say the Louisiana Office of Motor Vehicles has collected about $2.2 million in penalties since it sent out 1.2 million letters Oct. 13 seeking $444 million in fines on lapsed auto insurance.
    
State Police Superintendent Col. Mike Edmonson, who's in charge of the OMV, said as of Wednesday the agency cleared 29,745 driving records as a result of the mass mailing.
    
Edmonson says some 69 percent, or 20,562, of those cases were genuine insurance expirations for which people owed fines, while 31 percent, or 9,183, of the violations were absolved after drivers showed proof they shouldn't have been charged the fee.
    
He says OMV also refunded $2,200 to drivers who paid fines in error.