Taking a high-tech approach

Police Department to begin issuing electronic citations for traffic violations

Perry Village Police Department is preparing to issue traffic citations in a new way that is safer and quicker for officers and the motorists they pull over.

The department will be converting to electronic citations — also known as e-citations — that are generated and printed through technology inside police cruisers. E-citations will take the place of the traditional tickets that were hand-written by officers after stopping cars for traffic violations.

“What happens is when the officer issues the citation in the car, it will print out of the thermal printer, much like a sales receipt, and the officer will tear it off and issue it to the person,” Perry Village Police Chief Troy Hager said.

Thermal printers, which use a heat process instead of ink, have been purchased for all six of the village’s police cruisers.

The village also bought three new on-board computers for cruisers, to go along with three existing mobile computers, which will be used to produce the e-citations.

All of the new technology was acquired with CARES Act money. The federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act provides funding to defray the costs of equipment and accessories needed to operate safely during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

It’s anticipated that e-citations will decrease the time that Perry

Village police spend interacting with motorists during traffic stops, as well as with Painesville Municipal Court employees while delivering citations.

At this point, Hager and his officers are awaiting authorization from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles to implement the e-citation program into their daily operations. A specific date has yet to be announced.

With the e-citation system, which is offered through the Ohio Department of Public Safety, an officer scans a motorist’s license using the cruiser’s on-board computer. The system then will capture information from the Ohio BMV on the driver and his or her vehicle. Other features help the officer to easily find and click on traffic offenses, and complete the rest of the citation quickly and accurately.

The system also solves problems that come with manually writing tickets, such as illegible text, incomplete information, or vehicle codes not being recorded correctly.

“We’ll be using (e-citation) software similar to what the Ohio Highway Patrol uses,” Hager said. “They love it. There’s a lot less mistakes, and all checks and balances are made in the software.”

The transition to e-citations will take place in conjunction with the Perry Village Police Department switching to a new, cloudbased record management system for Ohio police departments. While Perry has been using Lake County’s record-management system at a cost of about $7,200 per year, there is no sign-up fee or annual charge to become part of the Ohio Swift Protect system.

“The e-citations, there is a fee for that,” Hager said.

Perry Village is using CARES Act funds to cover the $37,000 start-up fee for e-citations. Going forward, there will be a $4,500 yearly fee to keep it running.

However, with records-management system expenses dropping to zero from $7,200, Perry will save about $2,700 annually by using the two new programs.

Completing an e-citation takes, on average, about half the time it requires to produce a handwritten traffic ticket, Hager said. This means officers, motorists and their cars will stay for shorter durations on roadsides, where there’s a danger of being struck by passing vehicles.

In addition, by devoting less time to dispending each ticket electronically, officers are able to return more quickly to their patrol duties.

Another benefit of e-citations and the new records-management system will be a reduction in time for data entry of traffic tickets.

“All the data in the car computer will be uploaded to BMV overnight, and then in the morning it will self-populate to Painesville Municipal Court,” Hager said.

The new methods also will save officers’ time and decrease mileage on cruisers by not having to personally deliver paper tickets to the court.

“So now we don’t have to drive in to Painesville, don’t have to (make additional physical) contact (during the COVID-19 crisis), and don’t have mask up to go into clerk’s office to file our citations,” Hager said. “All of that stuff doesn’t have to happen.”

With the e-citation system, which is offered through the Ohio Department of Public Safety, an officer scans a motorist’s license using the cruiser’s on-board computer. The system then will capture information from the Ohio BMV on the driver and his or her vehicle. Other features help the officer to easily find and click on traffic offenses, and complete the rest of the citation quickly and accurately.