Wednesday, March 31, 2010

New Crime Fighting Technology

County Police now have the ability to issue electronic tickets to traffic violators. The goal of the new system, E-TIX, is to increase officer and driver safety by reducing the amount of time spent on the side of the road during a traffic stop. A law passed in 2007 eliminates the need for traffic violators to personally sign traffic-related documents.

From their cruisers, officers will be able to scan the barcode on a driver’s license and the driver information will automatically populate the traffic document. They will even have the ability to review a color photo of a driver provided by the Motor Vehicle Administration in order to assist in verifying a driver’s identity.

Information on a driver’s previous traffic stops and warnings they received will be readily available. Local, state and national databases will be automatically checked for additional information such as arrest warrants on file.  E-TIX allows officers to spend less time on traffic stops by allowing up to four charges to be recorded on one citation instead of one charge per offense.  Motorists will receive a printed copy of the violation, reducing instances of illegible writing.  One additional benefit to the driving public is that shorter traffic stops create less opportunity for onlookers to affect the traffic flow.

“I am excited to have our agency be part of cutting edge mobile technology, particularly when it promotes the safety of both officers and motorists, said Chief Hylton.  E-TIX will provide us the ability to quickly share information with other agencies. It will also help improve officer efficiency, allowing them to issue traffic citations and in half the time of conventional ticket writing.”

1 comment:

Unknown said...

How many officers have this capability? When will all county officers have this capability?

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