Waiting for cops to write tickets becoming thing of the past

The only thing worse than getting a traffic ticket is waiting 20 minutes for a cop to write it up. But thanks to an electronic system being used by more and more agencies across Washington state, you won’t have to sit alongside the road as long.

The Seattle Police Department is the latest to implement SECTOR, a digital system that allows officers to simply scan a driver’s license and vehicle registration, and quickly print out an electronic ticket.

“It definitely alleviates some of the issues of people having to sit and stew while an officer fills out a ticket,” says Detective Patrick Michaud.

Along with speeding up traffic stops, the system drastically reduces the time it takes for officers to fill out paper work.

“Instead of taking two hours, it’ll take 30 minutes to complete a collision report,” Michaud says.

Most law enforcement agencies in the state are now using the system, says Debi Besser, Program Manager with the Washington Traffic Safety Commission, which helped coordinate development of the electronic program.

“We get approximately 70-75 of all collisions and citations submitted electronically now,” she says.

Besser says the system also allows officers to avoid making errors in citations or reports to avoid future problems.

And it can provide reports electronically to other agencies like the Seattle Department of Transportation to identify trends, such as collision hotspots to implement new safety and enforcement measures to help reduce future accidents.