An officer's laptop computer can now generate electronic traffic tickets, which replace handwritten tickets.
FOR RELEASE Thursday
March 16, 2000
Contact: Patty McQuillan
(919) 733-7107
Fayetteville - Speeders beware: electronic traffic tickets, the first in the nation, have come to Cumberland County. Now, when a motorist is stopped for a traffic violation, instead of a handwritten pink ticket, an officer's laptop computer spits out a ticket for the driver, and a copy is sent by radio wave straight to the court's computer files where judges can then access the information.
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An officer's laptop computer can now generate electronic traffic tickets, which replace handwritten tickets. |
The new e-Citation (electronic citation) will eliminate a dozen or more labor-intensive steps in the clerk's office as well as at law enforcement agencies. Reducing redundant paperwork means officers will be able to spend more time on patrol and court clerks can spend more time helping people at their counters.
"This is almost a dream come true for me," Cumberland Clerk of Court Tommy Griffin said about the new e-Citations. "It's just wonderful, allowing clerks to work like they're supposed to do."
The Cumberland County Sheriff's Department, the Fayetteville Police Department and the State Highway Patrol generate among them about 50,000 citations each year in Cumberland County. When the officers, under the old system, delivered their handwritten traffic tickets to the courthouse, the clerk would assign and stamp courtroom and file numbers, separate the tickets by court date and courtroom, and alphabetically file the tickets in filing cabinets. Clerks also had to enter all the information into a computer.
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Handwritten tickets, like this one, required several more steps to make it into the system. |
Three days before the court date when the calendar was printed, the clerk pulled the ticket, and the citations were taken to the courtroom. If there was a continuance or a no-show, the staff had to repeat the process. Law enforcement personnel also had numerous steps in maintaining ticket files for their agencies.
"Using the e-Citation technology to cut paperwork and eliminate redundancy is tremendous progress in North Carolina, making our courts more efficient," said Judge Tom Ross, director of the Administrative Office of the Courts. "The paperwork overload stymied our operations for years, and this new electronic filing system will eliminate many labor-intensive steps, breathing new life into the clerk's office."
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Cumberland County Clerk of Court Tommy Griffin will no longer have to navigate the cumbersome paper filing system. |
Ross said once this pilot program has been fine-tuned, he plans to expand the e-Citation network to other counties. The $500,000 cost of installing e-Citation was paid by the Governor's Highway Safety Program. The Criminal Justice Information Network, CJIN, provided the link between the various enforcement agencies and the Cumberland County Courthouse. North Carolina is the first in the nation to transmit traffic tickets by radio wave to the courtroom.
The e-Citation project was a joint project among many agencies including the Criminal Justice Information Network, the Cumberland County Sheriff's Dept., the Fayetteville Police Dept., the Governor's Highway Safety Program, IBM, Interplat Solutions, Inc., Mobile Data Solutions, the N.C. Highway Patrol and the Administrative Office of the Courts.
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