‘Digitickets’ to replace carbons, streamline traffic tickets in Madison County

Traffic tickets will be faster and more accurate in the future, now that Madison County is launching its Digiticket e-citation program, officials declared Thursday.

Madison County Circuit Clerk Mark Von Nida released the new system this month, after months of setup and training for Madison County Sheriff’s Department officers.

Police officers who pull over a motorist must get the driver’s license and insurance card from the driver, go back to the car and pull up the driver’s information on the squad car laptop. All of that still needs to happen, Von Nida said.

But up until now, the officer would then pull out a paper pad with carbons and write out the ticket by hand. The driver would get one copy, and the carbons would go to the police department. A clerk then typed the information from the carbon into the department’s computer. Then the other carbon would be physically carried to the Madison County Circuit Clerk’s office, where another clerk would manually type in the information again.

“We are wasting time in redundancy,” Von Nida said. “Time wasted is money wasted, especially for the taxpayers.”

Now, officers will be able to issue a citation in five minutes or less. Digiticket E-Citations will be entered directly by the officer in his squad car, and a portable printer in the car will print out the ticket for the motorist.

That ticket is then automatically uploaded into the circuit clerk’s computers and the police department, eliminating the need for data entry. It also reduces or eliminates the potential for typos and errors, Von Nida said.

It’s also safer for officers, lessening the time for the officer out on the roads, according to Sheriff John Lakin. “The less amount of time an officer has to stay out on the side of a busy road issuing a citation, the safer the officer will be,” Lakin said. “It is a time-consuming effort when an officer makes a traffic stop.”

Lakin said his officers have already begun using the e-tickets. “It’s something that we all knew was going to evolve at some point,” he said.

One St. Jacob resident actually was able to get his ticket thrown out because of the old-fashioned ticket process. Chris Geiler was given a speeding ticket on May 5, 2014, but the carbon copy didn’t make it from the Troy Police Department to the Madison County Circuit Clerk until May 9.

A month later, Geiler — acting as his own attorney — filed a motion to dismiss, alleging that the four-day delay was a violation of Illinois Supreme Court Rule 522, which requires that citations must be mailed or delivered to the circuit clerk within 48 hours.

The judge agreed, and the citation was dismissed. The county appealed, but the 5th District Appellate Court affirmed the circuit court’s original decision. The case is now headed to the Illinois Supreme Court, which has agreed to hear the case, but arguments have not yet been made.

In the meantime, police departments have gone to new lengths to make sure the carbons get to the county offices in Edwardsville on time. Officers have made multiple runs throughout the week to bring in boxfuls of ticket carbons; sheriff’s deputies have made rounds of outlying areas picking up tickets; and in some cases, police departments have had officers making runs to the post office on Saturday, since it is more than 48 hours from Friday night to Monday morning, but the circuit clerk’s office is not open on weekends.

Von Nida said the new e-ticket system will render the issue moot, as all tickets will be automatically uploaded into his office’s computers as soon as they are written. However, he said this project was not inspired by the Geiler case; it was underway even before then, he said.

The initial phase of the project - installing software and training clerks and officers for Madison County Sheriff’s Department - cost about $49,483. It is being funded through a $5 e-citation fee that has been collected on all court-appearance traffic tickets in Madison County since 2011. Of that $5, $3 goes to the circuit clerk’s office and $2 goes to the individual police department.

As each department goes online, Von Nida said, the department will have to buy a software license and the portable printers, but most of the hardware they need is already in place in police squad cars. Madison County is now live, and Granite City Police should implement within a few months.

“The goal is to have all Madison County police agencies using the e-citation program by the end of next year,” Von Nida said.

This story was originally published March 24, 2016 at 10:19 PM with the headline "‘Digitickets’ to replace carbons, streamline traffic tickets in Madison County."