An Empty Array Is Not Proof That a Vehicle Has No Fines
Imagine checking a used car before buying it. The page returns zero traffic fines. Three sources answered successfully; a fourth timed out. If the interface presents one reassuring green total, it has quietly converted a technical failure into a claim about the car.
The database may be available, the API may return HTTP 200, and the JSON may be valid. The answer can still be misleading. This is a design problem for any product that aggregates records from independent sources: the response must describe what was observed and what remains unknown.
Disclosure: I am Enrique Orione, founder of multas.ar, an Argentine platform for traffic-fine lookup and notifications for individuals, with an API and fleet-management tools for businesses. The following is a proposed design pattern, not a report of a particular production incident or a claim about nationwide coverage. All examples are hypothetical.
Separate the source outcome from the records
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