Virginia is finally beginning to update the technology used in the criminal justice system.
It’s about time.
As the Free Lance-Star reports, the city of Fredericksburg is now the first locality in Virginia to have computerized tickets in police cruisers. The technology is pretty cool!
Currently, if you’re stopped in Virginia, the police write out a carbon paper Uniform Traffic Summons. They have you sign it and give you one of the carbon copies. It takes a bit of time for the officers to write out the tickets, and they’re prone to errors. Once the ticket is filed with the court, it has to be entered into the court computer system by hand. Yep. It’s inefficient.
The new system starts with the police officer scanning the bar code on your driver’s license. The cruiser’s computer pulls up your information, and the officer can enter the ticket details. He then prints it from a small printer. You sign it, and you’re back on the road.
As a traffic defense attorney, I’m excited about this development. Mainly because I think it will increase accuracy and readability of traffic tickets. It’s actually quite a pain to deal with the inaccurate data on tickets currently, including misspellings of defendant names.
Here’s my suggestion to improve the new system: Give the defendant the option to receive a copy of the ticket via email. It sounds a little crazy, but it would give people an easy copy of the ticket for their records. And they could easily forward that email to their attorney for review.