Paperless traffic citations research papers example

Abstract

The use of manual citation by the traffic department of the California Highway Patrol is slowly proving to be overweighed by the amount of work due to a high number of cases and reports. The manual citation is especially time consuming and prone to errors that have proved vital to the trial of the cases in court. The situation, therefore calls for an urgent change. This paper highlights electronic citation as a possible alternative to be used by the California Highway Patrol in the handling of the traffic cases. The new system is to facilitate an overhaul of the current traffic records database and in its place a more detailed and easy to use database. This is to help improve the efficiency of the traffic department and also reduce the time spent when making the citation. When all this is achieved with the use of an electronic citation, the traffic department will be in order and more efficient.

Foundation

The California highway Patrol is a law enforcement agency that is based in the state of California. Statistically, it is the largest agency within any state in the United States of America. This is going by the number of employees (Valcarcel, 2012). Employee are as high as 11000, of which about 7500 are recognized by the federal bureau of statics as sworn officers. The California was formed by the state legislature of California. It is a section of the division of motor vehicle department which is a part of the Public Works. It is important to note that California Highway Patrol also serves as the state police in California.

Need Analysis

Being the largest state agency of the United States as a whole, one can imagine the amount of work that the agency has to handle in a daily basis. The main work of the California Highway Agency is to monitor all roadways and passages in California State. They are charged with ensuring that law and order is maintained in all the roads within the state (Motorolla solutions, 2013). This is besides its duties in an acting capacity as the California police. The agency, therefore, has a lot of work. Therefore, efficient ways of doing the duties would be welcome as this would make work easier for them as well as also increase their efficiency in terms or work output to the public.
Currently, most of the work done within the agency is done more manually and less electronically. This perhaps explains the high number of employees that the agency has. The agency is yet to welcome the idea of technology. This means that the company is less efficient as it is slow due to lack of technology. One of the main duties of the California Highway Patrol is to look out for the drivers and other road users who violet traffic regulations and bring them to the book to face justice(Griffith, 2013). The number of road users who violate traffic regulations in the state is admittedly very high. This calls for and means a lot more effort should be placed in order to reduce the number of such violators.
Violation of traffic rules is a common offense committed along the roads in California. An effective way to deal with the bulk cases is, therefore, very much necessary(Gonzalez, 2012). The initial action in the process of arresting the traffic rules violator to justice is booking. In this step, the officer or law enforcer from the agency has to take the details of the violator of the regulation and cite his offense and issue him with a charge sheet. This step is time consuming when done manually. The officer has to write down the details of the offender and countercheck with the database manually in order to validate the information given.
This system citation by law enforcers has several delimits. For instance, it is very tedious and time consuming. It is tedious in that the officer or law enforcer has to do a lot of writing and manually look up the details of the offender to validate the details. The system also consumes a lot of time as officers spend a lot of time trying to record the offenses and the details of the perpetrators (Lackey, 2012). This time that is wasted doing all the manual citations to the offenders would be used by the officers to get many more perpetrators who end up getting away without facing the law. Many more perpetrators, therefore, would be brought to the book if the law enforcement agency were to use more efficient way of citing the offences. The most efficient citation method is to use the paperless citation where it is done electronically.
The use of paperless citations will be able to do away with the numeral mistakes which the agency was prone to make during the use of the manual citation. When using the manual citation system, officers and enforcers of the law have been found to make several mistakes during the recording. This is mainly due to the haste in which they carry out the task.
The paperless citation would not only be useful in saving time but will also increase the number of violators of traffic rules and regulations who are brought to justice. This is because officers will use less time during the citation since the electronic citation takes, but a few seconds and, therefore, the officers will have more time to follow up more perpetrators. The citation will also be less tedious to the officers, and they will not feel overburdened by the tasks that they have to carry out during their duties (Motorolla solutions, 2013). It is possible that the use of paperless citation will be a way of reducing the number of deaths or injuries that the officers sustain during the course of duty. This is because the officers won’t have to solicit information amount the offenders by asking them. The only have to record the details of the driver into the e-citation device.

Project Plan

In order to fully implement the e-citation system, a lot of changes will have to be put in place. First it would be important that the state contacts an IT company that will overhaul the current database system and its place replace it with a more updated system that will be able to be used for the e-citation. The entity will be able to perform the following functions during its tenure. First the company will have to develop and also maintain a five year plan during which it will update and improve California’s traffic records system(Lackey C., 2012). The company will also be charged to identify various ways to improve the efficiency and correctness, promptness and similarities of the traffic records of California.

Acquisition of Technology

The use of e-citations involves the use of computer generated citations that are transmitted by handheld devices such as mobile phones. The handheld device will be with the police officer during the citation. The citations will immediately be reflected against the traffic records and immediately the citation will be complete. There are bound to be several other benefits of the use of electronic citations (Lackey K., 2012). For instance, the courts that will be deciding the traffic violation cases will have a relatively easier job in terms of the evidence available. This is because the electronic that was issued during the citation can easily be produced in the court to prove that the citation did take place. The tickets also provide a space that the officer will sign to certify that indeed the citation did take place. This will help validate or authenticate the electronic ticket.

Implementation of Technology

The technology required for the establishment of the electronic is not as complicated as it may appear to many. It is a financial investment that will eventually pay off and even make returns out of the saved money. The company that will be contracted should be in a position to acquire the various devices that will enable the flawless running of the new system. On the same note, it is vital for the state take serious measures when awarding the tender of the restructuring of the traffic records. This is to ensure that the tender is awarded to a company that it deserves and one that will be able to do the job to perfection (Gonzalez, 2012). This is because an incompetent company will end up derailing the whole process and thus make an embarrassment out of a good course.

Maintenance of the Technology

The mobile devices to be used by the officers should be well tethered to the system and information should be able to be transmitted between them if the system is to perform the desired functions. Maintaining the technology and system should not be such a difficult task. It is important that the data inside the traffic records be updated once in a while to ensure that new road users and motorist are incorporated into the system. Checkups and maintenance should be done on a regular basis to ensure that the data records are available and that the system is working full time.
The e-citation system is, therefore, a great idea of improving the efficiency of the California Highway Patrol department. It is away to cub and reduce the many instances of disregard for road rules and regulations of by many motorists in California.

References

Gonzalez, N. (2012). Mesa’s e-Citation to simplify traffic infraction data entry. The Arizona Republic, 31-39.
Griffith, D. (2013). E-Citation: A Force Multiplier. The Police Magazine, 5-11.
Lackey , K. (2012). Electronic Citations Speed up Ticketing by Police. USA Today, 12-19.
Lackey, C. (2012). Shifting to Ecitations. USA Today, 29-41.
Motorolla solutions. (2013). E-citation. Motorola Leak, 15-17.
Valcarcel, J. (2012). Maryland’s Pursuit of the Paperless Patrol Car: Using Mobile Technology to Foster Interagency Collaboration and Improve Officer Safety. The Police Chief Magazine, 17-26.