If you’ve spent anytime at the Fairfax County Courthouse on the average morning around 9am, you know how busy it gets. Most of the people are there because they’ve gotten a traffic ticket. Now, it looks like the county may be going electronic to deal with the volume:
WASHINGTON (Map, News) – With a rising pile of traffic summons each month, court staffing shortages and the ever-present potential for human error, Fairfax County may soon adopt an “e-summons” system that would allow police officers to directly scan driver information during traffic stops.
Officials in the Police Department and General District court said the program would not only speed the course of a traffic summons through layers of screening and data entry, but would eliminate handwriting and spelling errors that bedevil motorists and court staff alike.
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The system would greatly aid the Fairfax County General District Court, which has 36 staff positions to process between 20,000 to 25,000 summonses each month, said Clerk Nancy Lake.
Something like this wouldn’t do anything to cut down on the volume at the Courthouse, but it would go a long way toward making the system run more smoothly.
And just so you know, my visits to the Courthouse are in a professional capcacity.
