if you don't pay a ticket within the allotted month or so, you get a court date. if you don't appear in court you get a misdemeanor. the police won't hunt you down, but if you get pulled over, you're going to jail. there's also a good chance you're going to lose your license.
now you can generally assume that you're now a marked man everywhere, but that's not always the case. some states don't share traffic based violations like that with certain other states. this can lead to the interesting situation where your license has been legally revoked in a particular state, but not in all. strange shit. i have no idea how iowa deals with this stuff.
you do have the option of delaying your initial court date for a long time if you so choose though. just keep calling with good excuses about why you can't make the date. your first round in the courts isn't an actual trial anyway, you get hussled into a room with a few dozen other people and read your rights. they then give you the choice of either paying the ticket, accepted a basic plea bargain which is basically a choice of money vs. points on your license or going before a judge. if you chose the last, you then get a real court date. i've personally delayed that first date for 3 months and probably could have gone for much longer.
hope that helps
