For one reason or another you will not receive a traffic ticket/fine notification by snail mail and you will not have had the opportunity to pay it (There is a post on this forum "Traffic Tickets – How to Access them Online" that explains how to access your vehicle dept). This can cause significant problems when renewing your Brazilian driver license or when the vehicle and license taxes are due at the beginning of the month. You cannot resolve this issue via the internet.
With any overdue ticket issues you have to attend a DETRAN office location in person and I can tell you that this is a nightmare; when arriving there you get a ticket, have to wait for ages in a crowded room and that you have to deal with a non-English bureaucrat that may or may not be willing to help you.
But there is another way. DETRAN operates an office at Shopping Popular, a rundown market area near the old interstate bus station (Please click on the photo below for location details). In front of the DETRAN entry you will find several kiosks that supply custom number plates, copy services etc. And two of them can renew your expired tickets and give you a new paper copy. This will set you back 2 reais if you are Brazilian or 10 reais if you are a gringo (Oh the good old gringo tax), but it is worth it considering there is no waiting, crowds or dealing with Brazilian bureaucrats.