News
Collingwood/Blue Mountains OPP switch to electronic traffic tickets
October 28, 2020 By The Canadian Press
Traffic stops in Collingwood and the Town of the Blue Mountains (TBM) will now be processed electronically, according to Inspector Mary Shannon, detachment commander for Collingwood and TBM OPP.
“This is an excellent enhancement that will free up officer time but also enhance the job,” said Shannon at a recent TBM police services board meeting. “This initiative has just rolled out and we’re still in the midst of training our officers.”
With the use of E-ticketing, officers now obtain and swipe the driver’s license of the person that has been pulled over and all the driver information is automatically populated into the traffic ticket.
“I think the biggest enhancement in going to this electronic system is that now we capture every vehicle stop,” Shannon said. “We can now capture warnings in our record management system, all of that is now traceable.”
She explains that in many instances when a driver is pulled over for a traffic offence, they claim the incidence is a one-time event. By tracking the warnings in the system, officers are able to see when and how many times the driver has previously received a warning.
“We can come back to the cruiser, scan the driver’s license and their entire driving history now comes up on the officer’s screen and they can see that in fact that driver had been stopped in Collingwood just yesterday for the exact same infraction,” Shannon said.
She adds that the new system will also be an enhancement for the courts as everything will be filed electronically, essentially eliminating human error.
“We’re no longer dealing with illegible handwriting or faulty conversion in driver’s license numbers because everything is electronic, and it’s drawn from the driver’s licence and the licence plate on the vehicle,” Shannon said.
By Jennifer Golletz, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, CollingwoodToday.ca
Print this page
